10
There were further inscriptions, but these were all I copied. Brighton being given as Brighthelmstone shows how far back the stone was placed there—those were the days when people directed their letters "Brighthelmstone, near Lewes." I learnt afterwards that this milestone was erected by a former Earl Sheffield in order to settle the frequent disputes that arose with the postboys as to distances to his park and the inn. "Private travellers," as those who posted about country were called, had need of well-filled purses, for in addition to the charge for posting that ranged, according to Leigh's Road Book (sixth edition of 1837), from 1s. to 1s. 9d. per mile, the postillion expected and demanded a further 3d. a mile for himself, and more if he could extort it; besides which the traveller frequently felt under the moral compunction "to take something for the good of the house" during the delay of changing horses.
On the arrival and departure of the postchaise the old-fashioned landlord was always in polite evidence, willing to drink the traveller's health at the traveller's expense—it was the custom of the age. What constitutions the men of those days must have had, whether of high or low degree! Men then there were who could drink their two, or even three, bottles of port at night, and rise the next morning apparently none the worse for it. When I was a youth I visited a country squire, one of the last of the old race, and I well remember that after dinner he drank his two bottles of port, excepting a glass that was given to me; at the finish he was "as sober as a judge," and the next morning, early, he was out with the hounds.
Leaving the old inn we took a narrow lane opposite to it, for it had a pleasant look; the highway too was pleasant enough, but we thought the lane the more likely to lead to some out-of-the-way spot and have more picturesque possibilities: the highways serve the towns, the byways the villages and the countryside, so always take to a lane when you can if you desire to discover the secreted beauty of the land. Our lane led us through a green and old-world country with no hint of modern ugliness or aught but tranquillity about it, a tranquillity that hardly seemed of our bustling day. The lane was long, but not too long for us, and very winding; possibly our lanes follow the old primitive tracks of past days when the early inhabitants, to avoid a swamp, soft ground, or a wood, simply deviated this way and that in search of firmer footing; even, it may be, these early inhabitants followed on the earlier track of wild animals. Small wonder our lanes are often so wandering—delightfully wandering, for therein lies their special charm: who can tell what a lane may do, or what surprise each bend of it may have in store for the traveller? Then a crooked lane controls the pace, you cannot go fast on it, so time is compulsorily afforded to see and absorb all that is worth seeing; the lane is for the loiterer, though few there be who care to loiter nowadays, so the lane is almost forsaken except by country folk and rural lovers. Some one somewhere says, who or where I cannot now remember, nor am I sure if I have the quotation right, but this is the drift of it, "The lane is a work of genius, the highway that of the engineer." The lane is to the highway as old wine is to new; there is a finer flavour about it, a rarer charm; it leads to half-forgotten places and quiet scenes—
Where the wheels of Life swing slow,
And over all there broods the peace
Of centuries ago.
At last, after many windings and some climbings, our lane brought us to the remote and pleasant village of Horsted Keynes, set on a hill and surrounded by woods. If one goes in search of these out-of-the-way spots they are apt to escape one; it is the good fortune of the true wanderer to discover them—that is the reward of desultory travel. Stopping the car in the wide village street, a goodly portion of the youthful population promptly surrounded it. "A motor-car, a motor-car," I heard them call out to each other, as though the sight of one was somewhat rare; perhaps but few motorists find, or lose, their way there. To travel and escape other cars and the morning paper is a feat even in rural England. Then apropos of nothing one of the boys explained, "That's the way to the church, down that narrow road." "I did not ask the way to the church," I responded; "why did you point it out?" "Well, I thought as how you came to see it; there's nothing else to see here." There was not, except one or two rather pretty cottages.
There before us, a little down a narrow road, stood the ancient church with its tall shingle steeple, curiously slight. I strolled up to the silent fane of Sunday devotion for the sake of a walk and to get a better glimpse of the old-fashioned cottages on the way, each with its little garden gay with flowers. Then I glanced inside the church. I had not been there more than a minute or two before the clerk made his appearance, somewhat out of breath in his haste to discover me before I departed. "I saw as how you were a stranger," said he, "and thought perhaps you would like me to show you over the church." So are strangers' movements noted in quiet places. In many an out-of-the-world village the coming of a stranger arouses an astonishing amount of interest; his coming, his movements, his business, his going, are subjects of discussion and watching. How uneventful and unexciting must the lives of the sleepy villagers be that so small a matter should claim their special attention; little wonder that the younger generation among them seeks the town as a relief from the dull monotony of its existence. How to make village life attractive is the problem, and a pretty stiff problem too. Village halls and reading-rooms do not solve it—the average villager scorns them; he, or she, much prefers to idle out-of-doors doing nothing, contentedly or discontentedly, varied by an occasional visit to the public-house. It is not an ideal existence. What the villager needs is a wider interest in life. "Back to the land" is a vain cry till country life is made less dull and more desirable; but if the country in the winter-time is dull to some, is not the town also dreary to others with its yellow fogs and muddy streets? I am writing of the poor man who throngs the town where labour is over-supplied and leaves the country where it is required. So the shires are deserted and the slums crowded. I am no politician, I detest politics as I do the devil—if they are not one and the same thing—but from what I have seen and heard, from the many talks I have had with the countryman lowest down in the social scale, I do feel that only the pride of possession of his freehold cottage with a little garden attached, or some small holding, will ever attract him back from the town to the land. A garden to tend keeps a man's idle hours pleasantly employed, and keeps him too away from the public-house. In the same way I still more strongly feel that the loss of the sturdy yeoman farmer, tilling his own little freehold, on which son succeeded father in the good old days, is a disaster to the country. To do "yeoman's service" had a pregnant meaning once; now it has none, for the yeoman has gone, gone to other lands to forward their prosperity. He was foremost in the fight on many a hard-fought field: he it was who helped to turn the scale at Crecy and Agincourt, and his reward has been to be improved (!) out of existence.
But I have forgotten I was with the clerk in the church. I am afraid that at first I rather resented his intrusion, but after all he turned out an obliging fellow, amusing too without the thought of such a thing, so I forgave him. "It's an interesting old church," he exclaimed. How familiar I am with that phrase, so often have I heard it; it is the stock phrase of most clerks by which he introduces himself to you, with the inevitable tip in view. But there he was, not to be disregarded, and with a smile on his face; he might have looked more serious, I thought, for I fancy he was sexton too. I don't know why, but his smile annoyed me; however, I let him have his way. "It's a very old church," he went on, "but it has been restored." "Do you know, I've already discovered that," I retorted. "'Deed, sir, then I suppose you be one of those learned antiquated gentlemen who understands architecture. Now I think I can show you something that will interest you. I likes to meet learned antiquities; I'm a bit of an antiquity myself." He was!
Then he led the way to the chancel, and there he pointed out to me on the north wall under a small canopied recess the miniature effigy of a cross-legged Knight-Templar, with his foot resting on the usual lion in miniature too—a very curious and interesting monument, the like of which I have not seen before; the recumbent figure is beautifully carved and in a good state of preservation. But why so brave and bold a knight—it is a matter of faith with me that those knights of old were all both brave and bold—should have such a miniature monument I could not conceive. It perplexed even the learned clerk to account for this strange departure from the usual life-sized effigies of warriors who are supposed to sleep peacefully below