upon the night, holding her candle high above her head as timid housewives do who look for thieves.

It was this that thwarted the Devil's purpose. No sooner did the light appear upon the rim of eastern hill than the Devil thought it was the sun.

"A thousand pests!" he cried. "The stars have marked the night a-wrong." And then, thinking of his wager and the forfeit, "My sainted nose!" he bawled. Fear flashed upon his dusky cheek. He turned and ran, leaping from the beacon in a loathsome fright to get back safe to hell.

The imps, too, as you might expect, seeing their master in such a horrid haste, fell themselves to panic. Shovels were thrown aside. Barrows were cast away. There was a scurrying of a thousand feet, and in a moment the hill was bare. Nor could they, for all

their speed, get to Paris for any profit before the dawn. As for the widow, she went back to bed; and to this very day she tells her neighbors how thus and thus she beat off thieves who assailed her henyard.

It is recorded in the sequel that Dunstan was up betimes, for like all good men he was an early worm. In fear he opened up his shutter and looked upon the Weald. It lay dry and safe in the morning sun and, with that quickness which saints possess, he knew that the ocean had not done the Devil's work. So into the fire he thrust his iron pincers till they were in a redhot state, then pelted fast upon the Devil.

Lunging on him he clapped the pincers to his nose and twisted the handle till the Devil's nose was all in flames. And so he dragged him for fifty miles, up hill

and down through brier and thorn, bumping his softer parts on all sharp and jagged rocks till the Devil was in much discomfort.

"Led me doe!" cried the Devil nasally.

At last, when Dunstan's wrist was numb, the Devil shook him off. He ran until he came to Tunbridge Wells, where he thrust his flaming nose deep below the water to ease the pain. And this is why these waters taste of sulphur even to our present time and are strong in healing.

The Devil's Dyke remains as when the shovels were thrown aside a deep channel scooped almost to the level of the sea-and all the churches of the Weald still ring their bells upon a Sabbath morning to gather in the grateful folk whose grandsires escaped this second flood.

JULIA FLOAY

"Would you save a human life?" asked Bill

CHAPTER XXII

IN WHICH A LADY TAPSTER SAVES OUR LIVES

T

HE bus route lay along the coast through Hove to Shoreham-by-the-Sea, where it turned inland

up the Adur. At Upper Beeding we crossed the stream and circled under the broken walls of Bramber Castle. The sea once flowed in this narrow valley with hills both east and west; and if the Devil had laid out three and six to buy an ordnance map he would have pitched upon this natural gap and drowned the Weald by midnight. Bramber Castle is now five miles from the ocean, but it must once have stood above the inlet's shallow beach. It was built first in Saxon days, but is mended in later fashions.

"Why did they never repair castles to match?" asked Beezer.

"Ah," said Bill. "Suppose that you wore your pants for a hundred years and at last the cloth wore through.

Do you think that you would find then the same cloth for patch?"

"Is that the explanation?"

"By no means," said Bill. "See! There's a path up the hill, worn bare by picnics."

"I think" persisted Beezer, "that if Sir Walter Raleigh were alive today and his old duds were wearing out, he would look odd in an ancient cloak and modern trousers."

"Now you've hit it," said Bill.

"Suppose we climb the path," I queried, "and explore the castle."

"What! In this rain?" answered Bill.

So we viewed it through the splattered windows of the bus, and checked it off in comfort.

In the misrule that preceded the Reform Bill Bramber was a pocket borough. A candidate writes of his election in sixteen seventy-nine. "You would have laughed to see how pleased I seemed to be in the kissing of old women; and drinking wine with handfuls of sugar; and great glasses of burnt brandy; three things much against the stomach." There were only thirtyfour votes cast, but each elector may have fetched the whole circle of his thirsty uncles and any aunt who was cut off by wrinkles from a willing kiss. It is said that a tenant with rent at three shillings a week, refused a thousand pounds for his vote.

And Wilberforce once sat for Bramber but did not know the whereabouts of his constituency, which was usual enough in those jolly days. A journey took him to the south from London and by chance his carriage