"You got it," she said. "I just take bus to Billing's Corner; and then 'Lewes coach drops me at Turnpike short o B'rick. Then 'dis but little better'n a mile to traipse down the valley. I was borrun in the River House in the Brooks along o the White Bridge under the church. And where I was borrun there my folks do still live. Pretty well beknown in them paarts my folks be, I rack'n." She was almost chattering now. And as her tongue resumed with joy the habit of babyhood a ripple of deep mirth swam over her face, and spoke of profound inward content.
She became shy and confidential. "Just under the eaves outside the room where I was borrun there's a martin's nest. And in the dark o summer nights they wake and gurgle to emselves. That'll be the little uns snugglin agin their mother's breast and thinkin how cosy. I do just adore to listen to em. Kind o company like." She gurgled in her turn, and then looked away abashed and blushing at the flow of her confidences.
"That's where you was borrun, was it?" mocked Ernie. "No, it warn't then. You was borrun in de corrun one morrun all forlorrun. How do I know it? Cos you're same as I be. You're a country chap."
It was clear that she enjoyed his chaff.
"That's a sure thing, you may depend," she answered in that humming voice of hers that seemed to resound long after she had finished speaking. "It's bred in my blood. See dad's dad and his dad afoor him dey were ox-herds in the home-farm in Ruther Valley. Dad went along o the long-horns on the hill too when he was a lad. There's few teams left now except only Mr. Gorringe's at Exeat. When dad's dad was a lad it was pretty near ox-teams allwheres in Sussex—on the hill and on the Levels. Then it come horrses; and prazendly it'll be machines. The world moves faster nor it used to did one time o day, I expagd. Ya-as. Cerdainly it doos."
The bus ran along the Esplanade to the pier, the sea shining on their left. Then it swung down Cornfield Road, stopped at the Station, and took the Old Road for Lewes. As it lurched under the Chestnuts into Water Lane, the Downs were seen across Saffrons Croft through a screen of elms.
"There they be!" cried Ernie, hailing them. "What d'you think of them now?"
"Eh, but they're like mother and father to you, if you've been bred to em," answered Ruth. "I just couldn't a-bear to be parted from them nohows. They're Sussex—them and the sea. Sussex by the sea, my Miss Caryll used to call it."
They travelled up the hill; and the girl feasted her eyes on the green of Saffrons Croft.
"I allow the brown-birds holloa in them old ellums, dawn and dusk," she murmured, talking more to herself than to her companion. "That's what I misses by the sea more'n all—the song o birds. There's no loo like for em—only the anonymous bushes. Reck'n that's where it is. They like the loo'th, doos birds. But times I see a old jack-yearn flappin along over the Levels like he'd all the time before him. And the wheat-ears come from acrarst the sea and show the white of their tails that carmical about Cuckoo-fair. Hap it'll be their first landing-place. They must be tired. But there's not nigh the numbers there was one time o day. When dad was a lad there was I dunna many all along the Downs from Rottingdean to Friston."