If you are the sort of person who likes detail and accuracy, who can
always tell where the north is even in a strange house (there _are_
people like this; I met one the other day), and--this generally goes
with it--are good at geography, you had better skip this article. It
might annoy you. But if you like DEBUSSY, and like watching the sun
shine through a mist, and have no bump of locality, and hate being shown
over ruins, you are the sort of person I am, and you will sympathise
with me.
My trouble is this. Whenever I go to stay in the country I am always
sooner or later taken a walk, generally a long one, to the highest hill
they happen to have, and there I am shown a view. Not that I would mind
if they left it at that, but they don't. One's host generally seems to
have an absurd pride in some distant church, or gap in a hill "through
which on fine days you can see the sea"; but even if he hasn't he will
_always_--if you happen to be in the south of England--point out a patch
of trees like a small piece of black sticking-plaster and tell you that
that is Chanctonbury Ring. I never escape Chanctonbury Ring, though I
have often gone far, even refused invitations, to avoid it. Once in
Yorkshire--but nobody ever will believe that story, though I never
pretended it was the same Ring. What I said was that there may be two of
the same name, or even more: like Richmond, for instance.
"Do you see that hill over there?" he begins. I look where he is
pointing and see three. "No, not that one," and he comes behind me and
points over my shoulder. "Follow my finger," he says, and I follow it
and see a perfectly flat field. But he has to be humoured, and anyhow
there is lunch to be thought of.
"Yes, yes, _I_ see," I reply hastily, with a touch of "How stupid of
me!" in my voice.
"Well, carry your eye along the valley on its left, over the white
house"--this is the only place where there is no white house for
miles--"and along the strip of road. See the strip of road?" ("See the
strip of road!" I've been lost in a bog for ages.) "Well, right up as
far as you can see, following that road and a little to the right, do
you see a patch of trees?"
When he says "patch of trees," I know.
"Chanctonbury Ring," I say brightly. At any rate, _that's_ finished.
"Yes; how did you know?" he asks disappointedly.
Brute that I am! Why didn't I let him say it?
Only once, as far as I can remember, was I wrong. It was in the
Cotswolds and we were in a garden, on the side of a hill. From the
terrace outside the house was a magnificent view. My host strolled up.
"Pity it's so misty," he said. (I had just been thinking how lovely it
looked.) "On a fine day, you know, we can see----"
"_Not_ Chanctonbury Ring?" I said pleadingly.
He looked puzzled.
"Tewkesbury,", he said rather coldly, and soon afterwards strolled away
again.
There are only a very few people whose sympathy one feels sure of when
one confides troubles to them such as this Ring-finding one of mine. Of
the very few I feel surest of my Uncle Edward, so I thought I would tell
him about it when I went to stay with him a little while ago.
"By the by," I said, as we laboured breathlessly up a hill--he lives in
Surrey--"have you ever noticed ... when you're staying with people
anywhere in the South of England ... and they take you for a walk ...
they always, sooner or later----"
"Just wait a minute," he said as we reached the top. "Ah yes, I thought
you could"--he was smiling happily at something. "I wanted to show you
before we went on--just over there----" I waited. Somehow the words
seemed familiar. "See that dark patch right over there, on the furthest
hill? Well, that's Chanctonbury Ring."
"Yes, you can only see it on a fine day," I replied bitterly.
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