TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

relatives except my aunt, whose connection with the
world beyond her own "round of calls'5 was confined
to a few old friends who seldom wrote to her, the
things which could happen were humdrum and few.

"What are you doing to-day, George?" asks Aunt
Evelyn, as she gets up from the breakfast table to go
down to the kitchen to interview the cook.

"Oh, I shall probably bike over to Amblehurst
after lunch for a round of golf/3 I reply.

Over at Amblehurst, about four miles away,
there is a hazardless nine-hole course round Squire
Maundle's sheep-nibbled park. The park faces
south-west, sloping to a friendly little river—the
Neaze—which at that point, so I have been told,
though I never trouble to verify it—divides the
counties of Kent and Sussex. On the other side of
the river is the village. Squire Maundle's clanging
stable clock shares with the belfry of the village school
the privilege of indicating the Amblehurst hours. My
progress up and down the park from one undersized
green to another is accompanied by the temperate
clamour of sheep-bells (and in springtime-by the
loud litanies of baa-ing lambs and anxious ewes).
The windows of Squire Maundle's eighteenth-century
mansion overlook my zigzag saunterings with the
air of a county family dowager who has not yet made
up her mind to leave cards on those new people at the
Priory. As a rule I have the links to myself, but once
in a while "young" Squire Maundle (so-called because
his eighty-seven-year-old father is still above ground)
appears on the skyline in his deer-stalker hat, with a
surly black retriever at his heels and we play an
amicable round.

Without wishing to ridicule him, for he was always
kind and courteous, I may say that both his features

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