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RAMBLES ABOUT BURWASH 37
Kipling with half a league between them, and, of course, they are now bridged over. The higher Willingford Bridge—Weland's Ford, in the Puck stories—leads to Burwash and the lower by Dud-well Mill to Burwash. The mill mentioned in the opening of " Hal o' the Draft," a place where rats scuttle in the rafters, and the attic possesses intriguing trap-doors and beams with inscriptions about floods and sweethearts, lies between the two bridges, but nearer the lower ford.
From Brightling as from the minaret of a mosque, one may look out upon the landscape, sleeping all fair and serenely in the sunlight upon broad reaches of meadow-land dotted by browsing cattle—upon close-clinging branches hung with a myriad leaves—upon the shimmering and shining waters of the far-off sea—and many gabled manor house, and quiet hamlet—upon hill and dale, and grove, and garden—a goodly picture. To the north and east spreads the Weald of Kent and Sussex, rich in a thousand changes of light and shade ; to the south-west rises the long bold line of the glorious Sussex downs ; to the south gleams and glitters the Channel, bounded in the distance by a low bank of clouds which denotes the position of the French coast.
The old mill by Dudwell Bridge will not fail to |
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