THE country amid which Margaret Fairless Barber ("Michael Fairless")
wrote "The Roadmender" is that central part of Sussex drained by the
river Adur, perhaps the least known of the three main rivers, Ouse,
Adur and Arun, which breach the South Downs. From Chanctonbury Ring to
Ditchling Beacon the Downs belong to the Adur, and this is the country
of the Roadmender. Here, from under the "stunted hawthorn," the eye
looks down on the one side to the "little church" on the Weald, and on
the other to the more distant "to and fro of the sea." Over all this
Wealden valley the "long grey downs" keep watch, and on the inland side
a constant companion of the roads is the spire of "the monastery where
the Bedesmen of St Hugh watch and pray."
Michael Fairless wrote Parts I and II of "The Roadmender" in a
farmhouse at Mock Bridge on the Adur near Henfield, and here in her
last days she lay writing "The White Gate," looking out over the
"pasture bright with buttercups where the cattle feed." Here she
died, and she was carried to the grave "under the firs in the quiet
churchyard" at Ashhurst, two miles away across the river.