He slowly passed his gnarled hand over the short grass.
“My missus ’ad the doctor when she died.... See that dust? That’s motorcars bringin’ folks to Goodwood Races. Wonderful quick-travellin’ things.”
“Ah! That was a fine invention, surely?”
“There’s some believes in them. But if they folk weren’t doin’ everything and goin’ everywhere at once, there’d be no need for them rampagin’ motors.”
“Have you ever been in one yourself?”
His eyes began to twinkle mockingly.
“I’d like to get one here on a snowy winter’s day, when ye’ve to find your way by sound and smell; there’s things up here they wouldn’t make so free with. They say from London ye can get to anywhere. But there’s things no man can ride away from. Downs ’ll be left when they’re all gone.... Never been off the Downs meself.”
“Don’t you ever feel you’d like to go?”
“There isn’t not hardly one as knows what these Downs are. I see the young men growin’ up, but they won’t stay on ’em; I see folk comin’ down, same as yourself, to look at ’em.”
“What are they, then—these Downs?”