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Towards afternoon, quite a little throng of ancient folk gathered on the benches under the Seven Sisters, drawn thither by the sunny mildness of the day. Sauntering about on the green hard by, I could hear the low hum of their voices; and at last I took a place, almost unobserved, on one of the outer seats a little distance from the group.

Eavesdropping, even in its most innocent form, hardly comes into the category of virtues; but, in any serious attempt to study country life and character, it must be reckoned almost a necessary vice. I confess, in this respect, not only to having yielded to it as a lifelong, irresistible habit, but to having cultivated it on many occasions as an art. The English peasant under open observation is no more himself than a wild bird in a cage; and these old folk, in particular, needed as much wary stalking-down as any creature of the woodland. Settled myself quietly now behind a newspaper in the corner, my presence, if it had been marked at all, was soon forgotten; and the talk began again among the group in the usual desultory, pondering style—talk in the ancient dialect of Sussex, such as you will hear to-day only in the most out-of-the-way villages, and then only among those with whose passing it also must pass irrevocably away.