By keeping due west for another mile Slindon is reached. This village is
one of the Sussex backwaters, as one might say. It lies on no road that
any one ever travels except for the purpose of going to Slindon or
coming from it; and those that perform either of these actions are few.
Yet all who have not seen Slindon are by so much the poorer, for Slindon
House is nobly Elizabethan, with fine pictures and hiding-places, and
Slindon beeches are among the aristocracy of trees. And here I should
like to quote a Sussex poem of haunting wistfulness and charm, which was
written by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who once walked to Rome and is an old
dweller at Slindon:--

[Sidenote: A SOUTH COUNTRY SONG]

THE SOUTH COUNTRY.

When I am living in the Midlands,
That are sodden and unkind,
I light my lamp in the evening:
My work is left behind;
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea:
And it's there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be,
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day:
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
Their skies are fast and grey:
From their castle-walls a man may see
The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong,
A-rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along.
They have the secret of the Rocks,
And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise,
They get their laughter from the loud surf,
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our Sister the Spring,
When over the sea she flies;
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines,
But I smell the Sussex air,
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there;
And along the sky the line of the Downs
So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend;
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me,
Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and ca