s
than a whitewashed cottage just when the lamp is lit.

[Sidenote: AMBERLEY AND PARHAM]

Amberley has no right to lay claim to a castle, for the old ruins are
not truly, as they seem, the remains of a castellated stronghold, but
of a crenellated mansion. John Langton, Bishop of Chichester in the
fourteenth century, was the first builder. Previously the Church lands
here had been held very jealously, and in 1200 we find Bishop Gilbert de
Leofard twice excommunicating, and as often absolving, the Earl of
Arundel for poaching (as he termed it) in Houghton Forest. The Church
lost Amberley in the sixteenth century. William Rede, who succeeded
Langton to both house and see, wishing to feel secure in his home,
craved permission to dig a moat around it and to render it both hostile
and defensive. Hence its lion-like mien; but it has known no warfare,
and the castle's mouldering walls now give what assistance they can in
harbouring live stock. Twentieth-century sheds lean against
fourteenth-century masonry; faggots are stored in the moat; lawn tennis
is played in the courtyard; and black pigeons peep from the slits cut
for arquebusiers.

[Illustration: _Amberley Castle._]

Amberley Castle only once intrudes itself in history: Charles II.,
during his flight in 1651, spent a night there under the protection of
Sir John Briscoe, as we saw in Chapter III.

In winter, if you ask an Amberley man where he dwells, he says,
"Amberley, God help us." In summer he says, "Amberley--where _would_ you
live?"

From Amberley to Parham one keeps upon the narrow ridge for a mile or
so, branching off then to the left. Parham's advance guard is seen all
the way--a clump of fir trees, indicating that the soil there changes to
sand.

[Sidenote: A NOBLE DAME]

For two possessions is Parham noted: a heronry in the park, and in the
house a copy of Montaigne with Shakespeare's autograph in it. The house,
a spreading Tudor mansion, is the seat of Lord Zouche, a descendant of
the traveller, Robert Curzon, who wrote _The Monasteries of the Levant_,
that long, leisurely, and fascinating narrative of travel. In addition
to Montaigne, it enshrines a priceless collection of armour, of
incunabula and Eastern MSS. Among the pictures are full lengths of Sir
Philip Sidney and Lady Sidney, and that Penelope D'Arcy--one of Mr.
Hardy's "Noble Dames"--who promised to marry three suitors in turn and
did so. We see her again at Firle Place.

A hiding hole fo