e of Brighton was his name: a
tall, powerful man even in his old age--he was above eighty at his
death--with a wise, shrewd head stored with old Sussex memories: hunting
triumphs; the savour of long, solitary shooting days accompanied by a
muzzle-loader and single dog--such days as Knox describes in Chapter V;
historic cricket matches; stories of the Sussex oddities, the
long-headed country lawyers, the Quaker autocrats, the wild farmers, the
eccentric squires; characters of favourite horses and dogs (such was the
mobility of his countenance and his instinct for drama that he could
bring before you visibly any animal he described); early railway days
(he had ridden in the first train that ran between Brighton and
Southwick); fierce struggles over rights-of-way; reminiscences of old
Brighton before a hundredth part of its present streets were made; and
all the other body of curious lore for which one must go to those whose
minds dwell much in the past. Coming of Quaker stock, as he did, his
memory was good and well-ordered, and his observation quick and sound.
What he saw he saw, and he had the unusual gift of vivid precise
narrative and a choice of words that a literary man should envy.

A favourite topic of conversation between us was the best foot route
between two given points--such as Steyning and Worthing, for example, or
Lewes and Shoreham. Seated in his little room, with its half-a-dozen
sporting prints on the wall and a scene or two of old Brighton, he
would, with infinite detail, removing all possibility of mistake,
describe the itinerary, weighing the merits of alternative paths with
profound solemnity, and proving the wisdom of every departure from the
more obvious track. Were Sussex obliterated by a tidal wave, and were a
new county to be constructed on the old lines, John Horne could have
done it.

[Sidenote: A SUSSEX ENTHUSIAST]

Of his talk I found it impossible to tire, and I shall never cease to
regret that circumstances latterly made visits to him very infrequent.
Towards the end his faculties now and then were a little dimmed; but the
occlusion carried compensation with it. To sit with an old man and,
being mistaken by him for one's own grandfather, to be addressed as
though half a century had rolled away, is an experience that I would not
miss.

To the end John Horne dressed as the country gentlemen of his young days
had dressed; he might have stepped out of one of Alken's pictures, for
he posse