Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/fourroads00kaye Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). THE FOUR ROADS by SHEILA KAYE-SMITH Author of “Sussex Gorse,” “The Challenge to Sirius,” etc. [Illustration] New York George H. Doran Company Copyright, 1921, By George H. Doran Company Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS PAGE PART I TOM 9 PART II JERRY 66 PART III THYRZA 115 PART IV IVY 153 PART V NELL 211 PART VI BABY 241 PART VII MR. SUMPTION 264 THE FOUR ROADS THE FOUR ROADS PART I: TOM 1 Four roads in Sussex mark out a patch of country that from the wooded, sea-viewing hills behind Dallington slips down over fields and ponds and spinneys to the marshes of Hailsham and Horse Eye. The North Road, slatting the heights with its pale, hard streak, runs from far Rye to further Lewes, a road of adventures and distances, passing Woods Corner and Three Cups Corner, Punnetts Town and Cade Street, till it joins the London Road at Cross-in-Hand. The South Road borders the marsh, sometimes dry on the shelving ground above it, sometimes soggy on the marsh level, or perhaps sheeted with the overflow of the Hurst Haven. It comes from Senlac and Hastings, and after skirting the flats, crosses the River Cuckmere, and runs tamely into Lewes, where all roads meet. The East Road is short and shaggy, running through many woods, from the North Road, which it joins at Woods Corner, to the throws at Boreham Street. Along this road is a string of farms—Cowlease, and Padgham, and Slivericks, mangy holdings for the most part, with copses running wild and fields of thistles, doors agape and walls atumble, and gable-ends stooping towards the ponds. The West Road is grass-grown, and in July St. John’s wort and rest-harrow straggle in the ruts and make the dust smell sickly-sweet. It forks from the North Road at Punnetts Town, and runs through Rushlake Green and the Foul Mile to Hailsham in the south.