country of the Downs was the first to be created when God fashioned the dry land, and that their beacons were His practice for higher mountains. At Cocking, Bill cried out "Oh, my soul!" Nor did a Dublin stout set him entirely on his legs. So he bartered for a motor to lift him the last four miles to Midhurst. Beezer, also, lay off here for tea and toast, so I pelted on alone. It was dinner time when I climbed into Midhurst and went among the inns to find my lazy comrades.

Midhurst sits upon a hill with an open square at top. This is the center of the town and, although I was tired with my sharp walk from Cocking, it seemed a picturesque place of feudal aspect, as if a gate each way might be shut against attack.

Democracy sprawls upon a plain, but a hilltop town is usually of older date and despotic rule. The very steepness, that kept it safe in troubled times from the brawling warfare of the valley, has lamed it in the race of modern progress; for commerce bears a heavy load and cannot climb a hill. In parts of the world still older, as in the Italian mountains or the Alps that hang upon the Riviera, every peak is the lodging of an ancient town driven thither for defense. To see the splatter of houses upon these dizzy pinnacles one might think that from the ancient tide that once roared upward in the valley, these are the wind-caught spray. But Midhurst sits upon a little hill which war might have climbed with cannon.

Our inn was the Angel, a bit below the top at a lefthand turn on the highway to the north. It was a fine old building with candles and musty smell—a resort

at week-ends for motorists and sportsmen. It was now Saturday night and, although we had a bed apiece, all rooms were sold for Sunday. A ripe waiter, with a soiled shirt front, did us well at dinner. Then we roamed for an hour about the village and fell again to bed.

J.M.C.FLDAY

Perhaps the horrid smell... might be explained

CHAPTER XXVII

NORTH TO HASLEMERE

T breakfast Beezer reported a disturbance of the night. Having divested himself of clothing

A

in his usual explosive manner as if he popped with too much dinner-he was climbing to his rosy couch when there came a rapping at the door. Advancing with gusty candle to the summons he was informed by a chambermaid that a lady of wrinkled nerves reposed in the adjoining room-or would repose whenever by God's mercy sundry sounds were quieted

in Beezer's room. Furthermore would Beezer be so considerate as to surrender the key to the door that lay between the rooms so that this rearward postern would be garrisoned and safe. And yet again perhaps the horrid smell that now issued through the keyhole might be explained to still the lady's fright.

Beezer gave up the key, but was innocence itself about the smell and noise. However, he assured the maid that all sounds and smells-if, as and when, issued-would at once abate.

"And were you noisy?" we asked at breakfast.

"Not that I remember," he answered. And then he added slyly, "But now that I think of it—yes, I knocked over a chair three times, dropped my shoes and was probably singing."

"And the smell?" we persisted.

"That?" Beezer grinned upon his bacon. "It was a pink marshmallow," he replied, "that I was toasting at the candle."

Midhurst is a town of contented living. At the weekend, perhaps, a motor clatters in with men who fish or hunt; but on quieter days its mellow buildings stand around its square with hands deep in pocket, and streets slope off the hill all four ways into the woods and meadows of peaceful country. Beneath the town the Rother loops across the valley in shallow course with a message that is carried to the turmoil of the sea. Here leaves and grasses run from home, but they falter at the turn like children who have come upon a highroad at their garden gate where the world spreads wide. A railroad of lazy single track veers to the easy low