But of the races I can say little. The ponies looked strangely alike-slim-legged creatures of a vast excitement. There were a great many of them, and they all seemed of a restless disposition. In their impatience for the pistol they backed all ways at once in a tangle of confusion. There was an equal number of jockies in colored jackets who were mounted on most uncomfortably short stirrups, as if a pain had seized them in the middle. It was, however, a pretty sight when they leaped at the pistol in a shower of turf. As any pony nosed ahead a great shout arose, and the hoofs struck out a gay staccato like the swish of windy rain upon a glass.

Back we came from the meadow. The crowd was swarming on the track. Somewhere in the archives of Goodwood it is written who won the Steward's Cup. None of us knew. We thought of asking as we came away, but kept silent out of shame. It seemed too much like an inquiry at the final whistle whether Yale or Harvard had won. But the blacksmith's three-yearold was beaten, and this was our only grief.

In a thick procession we motored to Arundel. Beezer, to stay his stomach, singed a water biscuit.

At the long table, the group from London gathered in for dinner. A newspaper was divided and scanned for tips upon the next day's racing. Shilling bets were laid.

T rained again next morning, so it seemed best to

I

lay over for another night at Arundel. Nor could

we have been lodged at Chichester, whither we were bound, because of its proximity to Goodwood. We were fretted and restless for the road, yet in retrospect this day of intermittent showers stands a tiptoe above its mates. Arundel is a town one might choose to be his island in a flood. Presently we knew each shop, the merchandise on every counter, the cat that yawned behind a window, the cobbler who repaired

the spoke of my umbrella. We got by heart the railway pamphlets of the Norfolk Arms, with their seductive pictures of coast and mountain. And I think that such advertisements must be of extra profit here in England where rainy days are frequent and tourists are cooped indoors with scanty occupation.

We inquired after breakfast if Arundel Castle were open to visitors, but it appeared that the Duke of Norfolk was now in residence and that the door was locked against the public. The Duke, we were told, is a lad of delicate health. He lives here with his mother; or, as the English put it, his mother resides here with the Duke, her son. It was at Arundel Castle that Charles Lamb once lost his sweep among the chimneys and here he laid him at last, all smirched and blackened, to sleep in one of Percy's lordly beds. We shall see presently these chimneys from the top of a nearby hill, and we shall look for a dusky waving broom at some upper vent to mark the safe passage of the smoky tunnel.

The weather cleared toward noon, after we had memorized the glory of the Midland Railway, and we set out on foot across the meadows of the park and through the woodland of its northern hill. Even at this prosaic hour the lake was beautiful; and I must suppose that the waters overslept the night and delayed their journey to the sea. And the lovely ladies of Mrs. Southworth, also, were still abed-the honest blond who sighed for Marmaduke, her dark sister of blacker thoughts.

Presently a young lad rode by upon a horse, and with

him were two girls in smart attire who gave him that kind of smile that girls bestow upon a duke. Did the prettier one hope some day to be a duchess? Her hair, escaping from her hat, was of a sunny brown. Let us think that she was the good sister and that Marmaduke will kiss her in a final chapter. And the lad really may have been the duke, although against description he seemed a sturdy fellow with bronzed face.

Across this wood, athwart the road, there runs a Roman trench overgrown with mighty oaks that guarded the hill more than fifteen hundred years ago. At the top the country opened to the north, with the ribbon of the Adur-as if it were a lazy snake-curling in the meadows far below.

We now turned down to Amberley Station beside the river, where we drank beer at the Bridge Hotel. The proprietor was Archibald Chew, "which said Bill, is a fitting name." A placard in the tap announced a village fête at Amberley, which lies a mile upstream.

Human Aunt Sally! Klondyke Pennies on a Plate!
Balls and Buckets! Draught Darts! Skittles!
The Cheerio Dance Band!
Admission 3d!

How did one bowl the stump? What was a human aunt Sally? And who would not shake a frisky leg for threepence to the music of the Cheerio band?

There was also a notice of an auction sale of a thou

sand acres belonging to the Duke of Norfolk, including the castle of Amberley. We are to see Amberley after we have had our beer, and to sit for an hour on the soft turf within the ruined walls.

I have spent description recklessly and my purse is bare of words. Yet here one might lie of a sunny afternoon while the pageant of forgotten days weaves the fabric of a dream. Unroofed rooms stand open to the sky where banquets once were held. Grasses wave on ruined walls. Archways lead nowhither except to the spacious corridors of fancy. On the stone ledge of a window an artist sat, attempting in futile line to catch the waving grasses on his pad.

We returned by train to Arundel for a late lunch. I have said that the Duke of Norfolk was a Roman Catholic and that the town was his property and creature. Yet near the station was a notice pasted on a wall:

The Protestant Light of Truth!

versus

Priestcraft!

"Aha!" said Beezer, "there's dirty work at the crossroads.

It rained again in the early afternoon but cleared at six o'clock, and so we walked five miles to Littlehampton and ate an excellent dinner at a hotel upon the sea. The room was crowded with smart folk who had been all day at Goodwood, and they quite shamed our knee breeches. A band gave a concert afterward on the common, but its blare was lost in the uproar of the