nd
wide straggling street of old houses and new (too many new, to my mind),
rising easily to the graceful Early English church with its slender
shingled spire. Just beyond the church is one of the most beautiful of
timbered houses in Sussex, or indeed in England. When I first knew this
house it was a farm in the hands of a careless farmer; it has been
restored by its present owner with the most perfect understanding and
taste. For too long no one attempted to do as much for East Mascalls, a
timbered ruin lying low among the fields to the east of the village; but
quite recently it has been taken in hand.

[Illustration: _East Mascalls--before renovation._]

A quaint Lindfield epitaph may be mentioned: that of Richard Turner, who
died in 1768, aged twenty-one:--

Long was my pain, great was my grief,
Surgeons I'd many but no relief.
I trust through Christ to rise with the just:
My leg and thigh was buried first.

[Sidenote: "IDLEHURST"]

I must not betray secrets, but it might be remarked that that kindly yet
melancholy study of Wealden people and Wealden scenery, called
_Idlehurst_--the best book, I think, that has come out of Sussex in
recent years--may be read with some special appropriateness in this
neighbourhood.

North of Lindfield is Ardingly, now known chiefly in connection with the
large school which travellers on the line to Brighton see from the
carriage windows as they cross the viaduct over the Ouse. The village, a
mile north of the college, is famous as the birthplace of Thomas Box,
the first of the great wicket-keepers, who disdained gloves even to the
fastest bowling. The church has some very interesting brasses to members
of the Wakehurst and Culpeper families, who long held Wakehurst Place,
the Elizabethan mansion to the north of the village. Nicholas Culpeper
of the _Herbal_ was of the stock; but he must not be confounded with the
Nicholas Culpeper whose brass, together with that of his wife, ten sons
and eight daughters, is in the church, possibly the largest family on
record depicted in that metal. The church also has a handsome canopied
tomb, the occupant of which is unknown.

From Ardingly superb walks in the Sussex forest country may be taken.

CHAPTER XXIII

FOREST COUNTRY AGAIN

Balcombe--The iron furnace and the iron horse--Leonard Gale of
Tinsloe Forge--Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt of Crabbet--"The Old
Squire"--Frederick Locker-Lampson of