Page:Highways and Byways in Sussex.djvu/297

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XXVIII
HILL WALKS
269

bigger, the chancel alone now standing. What Charles Lamb says of Hollington church in Chapter XXXVI. of this book, would be more fitting of Lullington.

We have come to Alfriston from Lewes, proposing to return there; but it might well be made a centre, so much fine hill country does it command. Alfriston to Seaford direct, over the hills and back of the cliffs and the Cuckmere valley; Alfriston to Eastbourne, crossing the Cuckmere at Litlington, and beginning the ascent of the hills at West Dean; Alfriston to Lewes over Firle Beacon; Alfriston to Newhaven direct; Alfriston to Jevington and Willingdon;—all these routes cover good Down country, making the best of primitive rambles by day and bringing one at evening back to the "Star," this mediæval inn in the best of primitive villages. Few persons, however, are left who will climb hills—even grass hills—if they can help it; hence this counsel is likely to lead to no overcrowding of Fore Down, The Camp, Five Lords Burgh, South Hill, or Firle Beacon.

I might here, perhaps, be allowed to insert some verses upon the new locomotion, since they bear upon this question of walking in remote places, and were composed to some extent in Sussex byways in the spring of 1903:—


A SONG AGAINST SPEED.

Of speed the savour and the sting,
  None but the weak deride;
But ah, the joy of lingering
  About the country side!
The swiftest wheel, the conquering run,
  We count no privilege
Beside acquiring, in the sun,
  The secret of the hedge.

Where is the poet fired to sing
  The snail's discreet degrees,
A rhapsody of sauntering,
  A gloria of ease;