ir
morning faces, bringing their buttercup garlands and droning out the
appropriate folk ditty. At Christmastime, too, it was pleasant when they
came singing carols after dark. This, indeed, they still do; but either
I am harder to please or the performance has actually degenerated, for I
can no longer discover in it the simple childish spirit that made it
gratifying years ago.

Meanwhile, quite apart from such celebrations, the times and seasons
observed by the people in following their work gave a flavour of folk
manners which dignified the life of the parish, by associating it with
the doings of the countryside for many generations. In August, though
one did not see, one heard about, the gangs of men trudging off at night
for the Sussex harvest. In September the days went very silently in the
valley, because the cottages were shut up and the people were all away
at the hop-picking; and then, in the gathering dusk, one heard the buzz
and rumour of manifold homecomings--tired children squalling, women
talking and perhaps scolding, as the little chattering groups came near
and passed out of earshot to their several cottages; while, down the
hollows, hovering in the crisp night air, drifted a most appetizing
smell of herrings being fried for a late meal. Earlier in the year there
was hay-making in the valley itself. All the warm night was sometimes
fragrant with the scent of the cut grass; and about this season, too,
the pungent odour of shallots lying out in the gardens to ripen off
would come in soft whiffs across the hedges. Always, at all times, the
people were glad to gossip about their gardens, bringing vividly into
one's thoughts the homely importance of the month, nay, the very week,
that was passing. Now, around Good Friday, the talk would be of
potato-planting; and again, in proper order, one heard of peas and
runner-beans, and so through the summer fruits and plants, to the
ripening of plums and apples, and the lifting of potatoes and carrots
and parsnips.

In all these ways the parish, if not a true village, seemed quite a
country place twenty years ago, and its people were country people. Yet
there was another side to the picture. The charm of it was a generalized
one--I think an impersonal one; for with the thought of individual
persons who might illustrate it there comes too often into my memory a
touch of sordidness, if not in one connection then in another; so that
I suspect myself, not for the first