ook the darker for the glow of light, the shapely cone of the hop-oast
rises at the end; there are swallows and flowers, and ricks and horses,
and so it is beautiful because it is natural and honest. It is the
simplicity that makes it so touching, like the words of an old ballad.
Now at Mayfield there is a timber house which is something of a show
place, and people go to see it, and which certainly has many more lines
in its curves and woodwork, but yet did not appeal to me, because it
seemed too purposely ornamental. A house designed to look well, even age
has not taken from its artificiality. Neither is there any cone nor
cart-horses about. Why, even a tall chanticleer makes a home look
homely. I do like to see a tall proud chanticleer strutting in the yard
and barely giving way as I advance, almost ready to do battle with a
stranger like a mastiff. So I prefer the simple old home by Buckhurst
Park."

[Sidenote: ASHDOWN FOREST]

The forest of which Ashdown Forest was a part extended once in unbroken
sombre density from Kent to Hampshire, a distance of 120 miles. It was
known to the Romans as Sylva Anderida, giving its name to Anderida (or
Pevensey) on the edge of it; to the Saxons it was Andreaswald. Wolves,
wild boar and deer then roamed its dark recesses. Our Ashdown
Forest--all that now remains of this wild track--was for long a Royal
hunting ground. Edward III. granted it to John of Gaunt, who, there's no
doubt, often came hither for sport. It is supposed that he built a
chapel near Nutley ("Chapel Wood" marks the site) where, on one occasion
at least, John Wycliffe the reformer officiated. At Forest Row, as we
have seen, the later lords who hunted here built their lodges and kept
their retainers. There are no longer any deer in the Forest; the modern
sportsman approaches it with a cleek where his forerunner carried a bow.
A hundred years ago, in the smuggling days, it was a very dangerous
region.

[Illustration: _Ashdown Forest, from East Grinstead._]

Hartfield, the village next to Withyham in the west, is uninteresting;
but it has a graceful church, and at Bolebroke, once the home of the
Dalyngruges, whom we met at Bodiam, and later of the Sackvilles, are the
remains of a noble brick mansion. The towered gateway still stands, and
it is not difficult to reconstruct in the mind's eye the house in its
best period. Of old cottage architecture Hartfield also has a pretty
example in Lych-Gate Cottage, by the chur