ver turf
odorous of wild thyme, is restful beside the eternal hills and valleys
of the hop district.

[Sidenote: SAINT DUNSTAN]

Mayfield has the best street and the best architecture of any of these
highland villages. Also it has the distinction of having done most for
mankind, since without Mayfield there would have been no water to cure
jaded London ladies and gentlemen at Tunbridge Wells. According to
Eadmer, who wrote one of the lives of Dunstan, that Saint, when
Archbishop of Canterbury, built a wooden church at Mayfield and lived in
a cell hard by. St. Dunstan, who was an expert goldsmith, was one day
making a chalice (or, as another version of the legend says, a
horseshoe) when the Devil appeared before him. Instantly recognising his
enemy, and being aware that with such a foe prompt measures alone are
useful, St. Dunstan at once pulled his nose with the tongs, which
chanced happily to be red hot. Wrenching himself free, the Devil leaped
at one bound from Mayfield to Tunbridge Wells, where, plunging his nose
into the spring at the foot of the Pantiles, he "imparted to the water
its chalybeate qualities," and thus made the fortune of the town as a
health resort. To St. Dunstan therefore, indirectly, are all drinkers of
these wells indebted. For other drinkers he introduced or invented the
practice of fixing pins in the sides of drinking cups, in order that a
thirsty man might see how he was progressing and a bibulous man be
checked.

[Sidenote: MAYFIELD]

When consecrating his little church at Mayfield St. Dunstan discovered
it to be a little out of the true position, east and west. He therefore
applied his shoulder and rectified the error.

The remains of Mayfield Palace, the old abode of the Archbishops of
Canterbury, join the church. After it had passed into the hands of the
crown--for Cranmer made a bargain with the King by which Mayfield was
exchanged for other property--Sir Thomas Gresham lived here, and Queen
Elizabeth has dined under its roof. The Palace is to be seen only
occasionally, for it is now a convent, Mayfield being another of the
county's many Roman Catholic outposts. In the great dining-room are the
tongs which St. Dunstan used.

The church, dedicated to Mayfield's heroic saint, has one of the broader
shingled spires of Sussex, as distinguished from the slender spires of
which Rotherfield is a good example. Standing high, it may be seen from
long distances. The tower is the original Ea