the Commandments, followed by this
ingenious motto, an exercise on the letter E:

Persevere, ye perfect men,
Ever keep these precepts ten.

[Illustration: _Hangleton House._]

From the Dyke hill one is within easy walking distance of many Wealden
villages. Immediately at the north end of the Dyke itself is Poynings,
with its fine grey cruciform church raising an embattled tower among
the trees on its mound. It has been conjectured from the similarity of
this beautiful church to that of Alfriston that they may have had the
same architect. Poynings (now called Punnings) was of importance in
Norman times, and was the seat of William FitzRainalt, whose descendants
afterwards took the name of de Ponyngs and one of whom was ennobled as
Baron de Ponyngs. In the fifteenth century the direct line was merged
into that of Percy. The ruins of Ponyngs Place, the baronial mansion,
are still traceable.

Following the road to the west, under the hills, we come first to
Fulking (where one may drink at a fountain raised by a brewer to the
glory of God and in honour of John Ruskin), then to Edburton (where the
leaden font, one of three in Sussex, should be noted), then to Truleigh,
all little farming hamlets shadowed by the Downs, and so to Beeding and
Bramber, or, striking south, to Shoreham.

[Sidenote: NEWTIMBER]

If, instead of turning into Poynings, one ascends the hill on the other
side of the stream, a climb of some minutes, with a natural amphitheatre
on the right, brings one to the wooded northern escarpment of
Saddlescombe North Hill, or Newtimber Hill, which offers a view little
inferior to that of the Dyke. At Saddlescombe, by the way, lives one of
the most learned Sussex ornithologists of the day, and a writer upon the
natural history of the county (so cavalierly treated in this book!), for
whose quick eye and descriptive hand the readers of _Blackwood_ have
reason to be grateful. Immediately beneath Newtimber Hill lies
Newtimber, consisting of a house or two, a moated grange, and a little
church, which, though only a few yards from the London road, is so
hidden that it might be miles from everywhere. On the grass bank of the
bostel descending through the hanger to Newtimber, I counted on one
spring afternoon as many as a dozen adders basking in the sun. We are
here, though so near Brighton, in country where the badger is still
found, while the Newtimber woods are famous among collectors of moths.

[Si