leasant enough.

One building only has suffered from the business of the road. The little
church stands behind arches and canopies of clipped yew, its walls
almost touching the highway. It is an interesting little building,
though much altered from its oldest form; the chancel has the remains of
clustered pillars, and a beautiful string-course of Caen stone running
round it. But those have not been the only attractions to visitors. When
I was there I noticed that the oak collection-box by the door stood with
its lid propped open. The caretaker happened to be in the church, and I
showed it to her. "Oh yes," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, "we have
to keep it like that. It has been robbed so often that we prop it open,
so as to prevent people putting anything in." The church door still
remains as wide open as the box. It would be a pious act for some
passing motor-car--or a collection from many--to present the little
church with a stronger box. Such continued hospitality, so vilely
abused, deserves a return.

[Illustration: _Trees on the Green, Ripley._]

Two miles up the road lies the Hut Pond, opposite an inn that serves
many tables. There is no quiet on the pond in the business of the day,
but I was once on it on an October evening, and as the sun went down the
sky filled suddenly with teal. Bunches of teal wheeled and circled in
the cold twilight, whizzed down among the rushes, darted up again and
round over the pines, then shot down again and settled, splashing
quietly in the sedge.

[Illustration: _Priest's door and Norman Chancel Ripley Church._]

Ockham village, with its church and park, is south-east of Ripley by a
mile or so. The charm of Ockham church lies in its tower, its east
window, and its deep and happy site among the oaks and elms of Ockham
Park. The church lies some hundred yards from the road, under the
windows of the manor-house, a building which cannot be said to owe
anything to the taste or consistency of successive architects. The
tower is thirteenth century, buttressed, mottled into cool greys and
pinks, and heavy with ivy. But the chief decoration of Ockham Church is
its thirteenth century, seven-lancet east window, and in the carving of
the capitals of its slender columns of black Sussex marble. There is
some quaint Flemish glass in one of the south windows; but the church is
spoiled by an extraordinarily ugly little chapel built on the north side
as a mausoleum for the family of the Kin