A tablet on the wall records in Latin that the chancel was restored at the expense of the rector, Dr. Hugh Totty, who died, aged 101, in 1857. In the south aisle hangs a tilting-helmet and the erminois banner of Sir George Strode; and a mural monument to Henry Corbould, artist and ancestor of artists, who died, aged 57, in 1844, is a a shocking example of “Gothic,” as understood towards the middle of the nineteenth century. Even this, however, is not so bad as the tablet, with marble profile portrait medallion, to one “John Snepp, gent,” 1823. [Illustration: THE FOX PREACHING TO THE GEESE.] The churchyard was once surrounded by a moat, in which, according to an ancient legend, there lay a great bell. How it came there the story did not say; but it was never to be drawn from its hiding-place until six yoke of white oxen should be brought for the purpose. The moat was drained long since; but legend was for once at fault, for no bell was found. XXXV Returning to Hurst Green, and resisting the temptation to turn aside for the purpose of seeing the farmhouse called “Squibs,” we come presently to Silver Hill, an eminence described by Horace Walpole, who in 1752 travelled Kent and Sussex with Mr. Chaloner Chute on antiquarian pilgrimage: “The roads grew bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness, our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at all killed, we got up, or down—I forget which, it was so dark—a famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a wretched village called Rotherbridge.” He forgot which! That is—like the hill—rather steep. But he must have known by the time they returned, for he speaks of the view from the crest, on the homeward journey, as “the richest blue prospect you ever saw.” It is indeed very beautiful, and the fact has been recognised by some enthusiastic person who, in a field beside the road to the left, has erected a tall staging, known as “The Beacon,” for sightseers. The hill is steep: not too steep for a determined cyclist to ride up it on the return, but still a very respectable gradient. It looks by no means so terrible as Walpole’s description would prepare the stranger for; but the roadway is, in fact, not that which gave these tourists and their guide such qualms, for it was reconstructed about 1830. Occasional lengths of deserted hollow road at the side are surviving portions of the old road, and are quite steep and rugged enough to acquit Walpole of unnecessary alarm. Robertsbridge is a long, long village of old-fashioned houses huddled together on either side of a narrow street in the flats that form the valley of the Rother. Although Robertsbridge is so undeniably old it is not an independent village, being in the parish of the much smaller Salehurst, seen across the levels, a mile away.