from noisy and
populous Brighton--a stranger to this neighborhood could only have found
his way by the compass, exactly as if he had been sailing on the sea! The
farther we penetrated on our land-voyage, the more wild and the more
beautiful the solitary landscape grew. The boy picked his way as he
chose--there were no barriers here. Plodding behind, I saw nothing, at
one time, but the back of the chaise, tilted up in the air, both boy and
pony being invisibly buried in the steep descent of the hill. At other
times, the pitch was all the contrary way; the whole interior of the
ascending chaise was disclosed to my view, and above the chaise the pony,
and above the pony the boy--and, ah, my luggage swaying and rocking in
the frail embraces of the rope that held it. Twenty times did I
confidently expect to see baggage, chaise, pony, boy, all rolling down
into the bottom of a valley together. But no! Not the least little
accident happened to spoil my enjoyment of the day. Politically
contemptible, Finch's boy had his merit--he was master of his subject as
guide and pony-leader among the South Down Hills.

Arrived at the top of (as it seemed to me) our fiftieth grassy summit, I
began to look about for signs of the village.

Behind me, rolled back the long undulations of the hills, with the
cloud-shadows moving over the solitudes that we had left. Before me, at a
break in the purple distance, I saw the soft white line of the sea.
Beneath me, at my feet, opened the deepest valley I had noticed yet--with
one first sign of the presence of Man scored hideously on the face of
Nature, in the shape of a square brown patch of cleared and ploughed land
on the grassy slope. I asked if we were getting near the village now.
Finch's boy winked, and answered, "Yes, we be."

Astonishing Finch's boy! Ask him what questions I might, the resources of
his vocabulary remained invariably the same. Still this youthful Oracle
answered always in three monosyllabic words!

We plunged into the valley.

Arrived at the bottom, I discovered another sign of Man. Behold the first
road I had seen yet--a rough wagon-road ploughed deep in the chalky soil!
We crossed this, and turned a corner of a hill. More signs of human life.
Two small boys started up out of a ditch--apparently posted as scouts to
give notice of our approach. They yelled, and set off running before us,
by some short cut, known only to themselves. We turned again, round
another winding