ool of dark water lying at a
considerable distance from the common, a well-known rendezvous for
those birds. Cautiously approaching, down wind, I reach the margin. Up
springs a snipe; but just as my finger is on the trigger, and when too
late to alter my intention, a duck and mallard rise from among the
rushes and wheel round my head. One barrel is fortunately left, and the
drake comes tumbling to the ground. Three or four pheasants, another
couple of woodcocks, a few more snipes, a teal or two, and half a dozen
rabbits picked up at various intervals, complete the day's sport, and I
return home, better pleased with myself and my dogs than if we had
compassed the destruction of all the hares in the county, or assisted at
the immolation of a perfect hecatomb of pheasants."

[Sidenote: KINGLY BOTTOM]

Kingly Bottom is the most interesting spot to the west of Singleton. One
may reach it either through Chilgrove, or by walking back towards
Chichester as far as Binderton House, turning then to the right and
walking due west for a couple of miles. Report says that the yews in
Kingly Bottom, or Kingly Vale, mark a victory of Chichester men over a
party of marauding Danes in 900, and that the dead were buried beneath
the barrows on the hill. The story ought to be true. The vale is
remarkable for its grove of yews, some of enormous girth, which extends
along the bottom to the foot of the escarpment. The charge that might be
brought against Sussex, that it lacks sombre scenery and the elements of
dark romance, that its character is too open and transparent, would be
urged to no purpose in Kingly Vale, which, always grave and silent, is
transformed at dusk into a sinister and fantastic forest, a home for
witchcraft and unquiet spirits.

So it seems to me; but among the verses of Bernard Barton, the Quaker
poet and the friend of Charles Lamb, I lately chanced upon a sonnet
"written on hearing it remarked that the scenery [of Kingly Bottom] was
too gloomy to be termed beautiful; and that it was also associated with
dolorous recollections of Druidical sacrifices." In this poem Barton
takes a surprisingly novel line. "Nay, nay, it is not gloomy" he begins,
and the end is thus:--

Nor fancy Druid rites have left a stain
Upon its gentle beauties:--loiter there
In a calm summer night, confess how fair
Its moonlight charms, and thou wilt learn how vain
And transitory Superstition's reign
Over a s