paved with large slabs of stone, brings us to a surprising hamlet
clinging to the hillside and, with its "Duke of Cumberland" Inn,
looking across the wide Fernhurst vale to where Blackdown lords it on
the other side.

[Illustration: MIDHURST CHURCH.]

At Easebourne, about a mile north-east of Midhurst, is a Benedictine
Priory used, until quite lately, as a farmhouse. It is close to the
church, which, with the buildings of the nunnery, form three sides of a
hollow square. The restoration has been carried out with taste and care
and the whole is worth seeing. The nuns of Easebourne would seem to
have been "difficult females," for a Bishop of Chichester in 1441 was
obliged to call the Prioress to order for wearing sumptuous clothes
with fur trimmings and for using too many horses when travelling, the
penance being a restriction to four. The nuns were spoken of by a
contemporary writer as "wild females of high family put at Easebourne
to keep them quiet."

The church, besides the tomb of the first Viscount Montague, removed
from Midhurst, contains a figure of Sir David Owen (1540); also a
Transitional font.




CHAPTER VIII

GOODWOOD AND BOGNOR