He proceeded to talk a good deal about Campeggio; his red silk and his
lace, his gout, his servants, his un-English ways; but it began to get a
little tiresome to Chris, and soon after passing through Ditchling, Mr.
Morris, having pointed across the country towards Fatton Hovel, and
having spoken of the ghost of a cow that was seen there with two heads,
one black and one white, fell gradually behind again, and Chris rode
alone.

They were coming up now towards the downs, and the great rounded green
shoulders heaved high against the sky, gashed here and there by white
strips and patches where the chalk glared in the bright afternoon sun.
Ditchling beacon rose to their right, a hundred feet higher than the
surrounding hills, and the high country sloped away from it parallel
with their road, down to Lewes. The shadows were beginning to lie
eastwards and to lengthen in long blue hollows and streaks against the
clear green turf.

Chris wondered when he would see that side of the downs again; his ride
was like a kind of farewell progress, and all that he looked on was
dearer than it had ever been before, but he comforted himself by the
thought of that larger world, so bright with revelation and so
enchanting in its mystery that lay before him. He pleased himself by
picturing this last journey as a ride through an overhung lane,
beautiful indeed, but dusky, towards shining gates beyond which lay
great tracts of country set with palaces alive with wonderful presences,
and watered by the very river of life.

He did not catch sight of Lewes until he was close upon it, and it
suddenly opened out beneath him, with its crowded roofs pricked by a
dozen spires, the Norman castle on its twin mounds towering to his left,