e; Rotherfield, its companion hill on the east, on the other
side of the Jarvis Brook valley, is surmounted by a beautiful church
with a tall shingled spire, that must have belonged to the scene from
the first. This spire darts up from the edge of the forest ridge like a
Pharos for the Weald of Kent. The church was dedicated to St. Denis of
Paris by a Saxon chieftain who was cured of his ills by a pilgrimage to
the Saint's monastery. That was in 792. In the present church, which
retains the dedication, is an ancient mural painting representing the
martyrdom of St. Lawrence. There is also a Burne-Jones window.

Were it not for Rotherfield both Sussex and Kent would lack some of
their waterways, for the Rother and the Ouse rise here, and also the
Medway. A local saying credits the women of Rotherfield with two ribs
more than the men, to account for their superior height.

Under a hedge half-way between Rotherfield and Jarvis Brook grow the
largest cowslips in Sussex, as large as cowslips may be without changing
their sex. But this is all cowslip country--from the field of Rother to
the field of Uck. And it is the land of the purple orchis too, the
finest blooms of which are to be found on the road between Rotherfield
and Mayfield; but you must scale a fence to get them, because (like all
the best wild flowers) they belong to the railway.

Between Rotherfield and Mayfield is a little hill, trim and conical as
though Miss Greenaway had designed it, and perfect in deportment, for it
has (as all little conical hills should have) a white windmill on its
top. Around the mill is a circular track for carts, which runs nearer
the sails than any track I remember ever to have dared to walk on.
Standing by this mill one opens many miles of Kent and Surrey: due north
the range of chalk Downs on which is the Pilgrim's Way, between Merstham
and Westerham, and in front of that Toy's Hill and Ide Hill and their
sandy companions, on the north edge of the Weald.

Mayfield is a city on a hill on the skirts of the hot hop district of
which Burwash is the Sussex centre. To walk about it even in April is no
exhilaration; but in August one thinks of Sahara. I lived in Mayfield
one August and could barely keep awake; and we used to look across at
the rolling chalk Downs in the south, between Ditchling and Lewes, and
long for their cool, wind-swept heights. They can be hot too, but chalk
is never so hot as sand, and a steady climb to a summit, o