W.L. GEORGE
Shepherd's Hey
First Love
The Little Sister
Last Love
Though local names, both of places and people, have been used in thisstory, the author states that no reference is intended to any livingperson.
Shepherd's Hey
Three marshes spread across the triangle made by the Royal MilitaryCanal and the coasts of Sussex and Kent. The Military Canal runs fromHythe to Rye, beside the Military Road; between it and the flat, whitebeaches of the Channel lie Romney Marsh, Dunge Marsh and Walland Marsh,from east to west. Walland Marsh is sectored by the Kent Ditch, whichdraws huge, straggling diagrams here, to preserve ancient rights ofparishes and the monks of Canterbury. Dunge Marsh runs up into the apexof the triangle at Dunge Ness, and adds to itself twenty feet of shingleevery year. Romney Marsh is the sixth continent and the eighth wonder ofthe world.
The three marshes are much alike; indeed to the foreigner they are all asingle spread of green, slatted with watercourses. No river crossesthem, for the Rother curves close under Rye Hill, though these marsheswere made by its ancient mouth, when it was the River Limine and raninto the Channel at Old Romney. There are a few big watercourses—theNew Sewer, the Yokes Sewer, the White Kemp Sewer—there are a few whiteroads, and a great many marsh villages—Brenzett, Ivychurch, Fairfield,Snargate, Snave—each little more than a church with a farmhouse or two.Here and there little deserted chapels lie out on the marsh, officelesssince the days of the monks of Canterbury; and everywhere there arefarms, with hundreds of sheep grazing on the thick pastures.
Little Ansdore Farm was on Walland Marsh, three miles from Rye, andabout midway between the villages of Brodnyx and Pedlinge. It was a seafarm. There were no hop-gardens, as on the farms inland, no white-cowledoasts, and scarcely more than twelve acres under the plough. Threehundred acres of pasture spread round Ansdore, dappled over with the bigKent sheep—the road from Pedlinge to Brodnyx went through them, curlingand looping and doubling to the demands of the dykes. Just beyondPedlinge it turned northward and crossed the South Eastern Railway underthe hills that used to be the coast of England, long ago when the seaflowed up over the marsh to the walls of Lympne and Rye; then in lessthan a mile it had crossed the line again, turning south; for some timeit ran seawards, parallel with the Kent Ditch, then suddenly went off atright angles and ran straight to the throws where the Woolpack Innwatches the roads to Lydd and Appledore.
On a dim afternoon towards the middle of October in the year 1897, afuneral procession was turning off this road into the drive of LittleAnsdore. The drive was thick with shingle, and the mourning coacheslurched and rolled in it, spoili