The Secret Places XVII & XVIII

Two more chapters of The Secret Places (Elkin Mathews & Marrot London 1929) - a chronicle of the 'pilgrimages' of the author, Reginald Francis Foster (1896-1975), and his friend 'Longshanks' idly rambling in Sussex, Kent and Surrey. See our posting of the first chapters for more on Foster and this book, including a contemporary review in The Tablet.

XVII

A FANTASY IN THANET

Longshanks had vowed (he said) to drink cherry brandy with the ghost of Dickens at the Crown Inn at Sarre, on the Canterbury road, but first, it being the vigil of Christmas, we went to St. Nicholas up at Wade above the Thanet marshes, to hear the first carols of the village hand-bell ringers. There were we constrained to drink with them in their sadly modern tavern under the gaunt church, so that we were late in starting for Sarre. Longshanks feared that Dickens, who kept regular hours, would have gone, and so we sought a guide who would take us by the shorter way of the brook lands. But he being full of Christmas ale, we left him (roaring great songs into the frosty night) outside a shepherd’s croft and departed thence with all speed, alone.
We felt the wind shifting; the little easting in it stung our faces. And then it began to snow.
Longshanks and I tramped silently

Secret Places XV & XVI

Two more chapters of The Secret Places (Elkin Mathews & Marrot London 1929) - a chronicle of the 'pilgrimages' of the author, Reginald Francis Foster (1896-1975), and his friend 'Longshanks' idly rambling in Sussex, Kent and Surrey. See our posting of the first chapters for more on Foster and this book, including a contemporary review in The Tablet.

XV

THE WITCH OF WALLAND

Longshanks is a man of Kent, and because of that he quite properly has no love for Sussex. Nor, despite my great skill in argument, can I persuade him that my county is a sacred place. He concedes that she may have been holy once, but now she has been defiled by the horde of novelists and poets who have adopted her as their own and driven forth her true sons to consort with barbarians. And that, of course, is true.
And so, having come to Rye above the marshes, we

The Secret Places XIII & XIV

Two more chapters of The Secret Places (Elkin Mathews & Marrot London 1929) - a chronicle of the 'pilgrimages' of the author, Reginald Francis Foster (1896-1975), and his friend 'Longshanks' idly rambling in Sussex, Kent and Surrey. See our posting of the first chapters for more on Foster and this book, including a contemporary review in The Tablet.

XIII

THE HERMIT

A man at West Hoathley wanted me to go shares with him in a pig farm, of which the great charm was a timbered house, but despite that and Longshank’s persuasions and also my liking for pork, I resisted the inducement and bade the tempter find another partner. Thereafter Longshanks and I came silently to the Sussex Ouse at Ardingly, where we helped a man to mend his fence. For that service he gave us food and beer, and would have added money