A quaint village it proved to be, to use a term too often misapplied, one that surely has no counterpart in all the land. Picturesque it could hardly be called; but though I prize both the picturesque and quaint, the quaint pleases me the
Facing the churchyard we discovered a most interesting relic of past times when religion was more to the fore than it is to-day. This was a pre-Reformation priest-house of the fourteenth century or thereabouts, an austere building of thick rough masonry, deep and narrow arched windows, and a great chimney-stack at one end, a building probably erected in this remote spot by the travelling monks who had not to live in it. I have, here and there, come upon an ancient fourteenth or fifteenth-century priest-house, for they have not all been improved away. There is one at Alfriston, another at West Hoathly—both in Sussex,—and another at Muchelney in Somerset, but these are all half-timbered buildings fairly lighted, and have not the solid, gloomy look of the prison-like structure at West Dean, the windows of which were originally probably of horn, or even possibly mere open spaces with shutters.
One would imagine, being so close to the sea with the river conveniently at hand, that West Dean must have its smuggling traditions: those free traders of old would hardly have overlooked so handy a spot; but if such traditions there be, we could glean nothing about them, for we saw not a soul in the place to speak to; the only living thing we observed was a chicken that apparently had lost itself. Never before have I been in a village with such a forgotten look; there the changeful centuries bring no change. Our car stood unnoticed by the side of a tall and broken flint wall that enclosed a weed-grown garden, wherein stood a great, round, and roofless pigeon-cote; not a face at a window did we see. West Dean took no note of our coming or our going. We drove into, and drove out of, a village asleep, and not even the hum of our engines or the sound of our horn awoke it. There brooded over all a sense of silence and solitude like that of the central sea.
CHAPTER II
A quiet valley—The importance of the unimportant—Moated and haunted houses—Romances in stone—A farmhouse holiday—A picture-book village—A matter of Fate—The tomb of Gibbon the historian—A gruesome happening—Upright burials—An interesting church—A curious epitaph.
Leaving West Dean we drove up the narrow and quiet Cuckmere valley, the smooth green hills rising steeply on either side and so preserving its seclusion to this present day. So quiet the valley seemed that the throbbing of our engines sounded reproachfully in our ears, as though a motor-car had no business to disturb its slumbrous tranquillity. We felt like trespassers! A snug and friendly little valley it is, through which the road and river run in close company. The Cuckmere is but a toy river; I should not have called it a river but that it is so marked on my map, and on its banks I saw a man with a gun shooting into the water. He was shooting fish, he said! I have never seen such sport before.
Passing the hamlet of Litlington we caught a glimpse, on the other side of the valley, of ancient Alfriston, a little village that calls itself "the capital of the downs," and its modest flint-built church "the cathedral of the downs." So, by title, the unimportant assumes the rôle of the important. A village becomes a capital, a country church a cathedral, and a stream a river. One might imagine this was the land of Lilliput!