ge of Houghton swiftly up on to the Downs, wooded here very
nobly, and so at the top of Rewell Hill I turned to the left and made my
way through the noble park to the little town of Arundel.

Now I cannot say why, but in spite of its seduction, which is full of
splendour, of its noble history and great buildings, I have never been
able to love Arundel. One is there always I feel too much in the shadow
of that mighty Castle which for the most part is not old at all, too
much in the power of that great new church that surely was never built
by English hands, which has altogether blotted out the older
sanctuary, and which, Catholic though it be, has never won my
affection. Arundel itself is all in the shadow of these two things,
each of which is too big for it, too heavy for free laughter and light-
heartedness. So it seems to me.

All I can find in Arundel that pleases me lies in the little town
itself, and in the old church of which one half, the chancel, has been
closed to all who do not hold the Duke's written permission to enter
it--as though the house of God, even though it be the property of a
Catholic duke, were not by nature as it were free to all. And so there
is a kind of sorrowfulness about Arundel that spoils my pleasure in it,
yes, even in the very noble remains of the old Castle that are hidden
away within the sham Gothic affair of 1791. Even in the beautiful old
church, of which one half is closed, even in the steep little town
which might have been as gay as Rye, I felt, overwhelmed by the new
Castle and the new church, neither of which has any antiquity,
tradition, or beauty.

[Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE]

The old Castle, with its great circular Norman keep within the huge
sham "fortress" of the eighteenth century, beneath which the town lies
like one afraid to ask for mercy, should not be left unvisited, for it
was probably built by that Roger de Montgomery, who led the Breton
centre at Hastings, and has thus nearly a thousand years of history
behind it, to say nothing of three sieges, that of 1102, when it was
surrendered to Henry I., that of 1139, when Stephen there held Matilda
prisoner and allowed her to pass out, and that of 1643, when Waller
took it after seventeen days.

Nor indeed should anyone fail to visit the beautiful parish church of
St Nicholas, a glorious cruciform building, Perpendicular in style,
built in 1380. It, too, has a long history. The church was originally
served by