nglish
free trade, and he is buried in the churchyard near the town. He was
evidently held in high regard in his time, for his house, which is still
standing, was presented him by the nation. Among the hills near the town
are several stately English country houses, and about half a mile
distant are the ruins of Cowdray mansion, which about a hundred years
ago was one of the most pretentious of all. There was an old tradition
which said that the house and family should perish by fire and water,
and it was curiously enough fulfilled when the palace burned and the
last lord of the family was drowned on the same day.

[Illustration: WINDMILL NEAR ARUNDEL, SUSSEX.]

XVIII

IN SURREY AND SUSSEX

Twenty miles over a narrow road winding among the hills brought us to
Shottermill, where George Eliot spent much of her time after 1871--a
pleasant little hamlet clinging to a steep hillside. The main street of
the village runs up the hill from a clear little unbridged stream, over
whose pebbly bottom our car dashed unimpeded, throwing a spray of water
to either side. At the hilltop, close to the church, is the
old-fashioned, many-gabled cottage which George Eliot occupied as a
tenant and where she composed her best known story, "Middlemarch." The
cottage is still let from time to time, but the present tenant was away
and the maid who answered us declined to show the cottage in her
mistress' absence--a rather unusual exhibition of fidelity. The village,
the surrounding country, and the charming exterior of the cottage, with
its ivy and climbing roses, were quite enough to repay us for coming
though we were denied a glimpse of the interior.

Haselmere is only a mile distant--a larger and unusually fine-looking
town with a number of good hotels. It is a center for tourists who come
from London to the Hindhead District--altogether one of the most
frequented sections of England. The country is wild and broken, but in
late summer and autumn it is ablaze with yellow gorse and purple heather
and the hills are covered with the graceful Scotch firs. All about are
places of more or less interest and a week could be spent in making
excursions from Haselmere as a center. This country attracted Tennyson,
and here he built his country seat, which he called Aldworth. George
Eliot often visited him at this place. The house is surrounded by a park
and the poet here enjoyed a seclusion that he could not obtain in his
Isle of Wight home. A