Page:The English Peasant.djvu/191

 large pool, so large that it might almost be termed a lake, leads to the most picturesque of farms. Its old house, its large round dovecot, its barns and outhouses, are all centuries old. From a talk with a foreman, who proved a most gentle sort of man, we learned that the farm covered eight hundred acres, and extended over the downs in one long strip two miles and a half in length; its width apparently not exceeding two or three hundred yards. He lived in the old farmhouse, but did not give a very inviting account of the healthiness of these happy-looking vales. They appear to be nothing better than natural tanks, into which the innumerable springs from the hills pour their water. To drain them thoroughly would be to deprive the sheep of the only water to be got in the hot summer-time; so in winter great pools of water flood the lower levels, causing much disease to the inhabitants. He and his children had all been ill together with ague. He had had it for some months, and was brought so low that he could only crawl on his hands and knees downstairs.

The next village we came upon is, without exaggeration, the most picturesque we have ever seen in any part of England. It recalled the old mezzo-tints of rural life a hundred years ago. The cottages were centuries old, and had the very highest of gable-roofs, with the thatch at the back coming down almost to the ground. In one of these little gardens was a poor mother. She was a great sufferer, her fingers appeared to be half rotted off with scrofula. She appeared a sincere, humble creature; knowing but very little, groping as it were in the dark, seeking, like the poor diseased woman of old, if she might but touch the hem of His garment.

Ere long Alfriston appears in sight,—a cluster of grey-brown houses all comfortably snoozing together. Behind rises the Down, to the left a large motherly church, grey and weather-beaten, built in the form of a Greek cross. This little but most ancient town stands immediately on the bank of the Cuckmere, and to reach it we must cross the meadow, now bright with buttercups; and traversing a long and narrow foot-bridge we enter the town up a side lane.

Thirty or forty years ago Alfriston possessed tanyards and tallow-chandlers' factories, but now they are all gone, and nothing