THE DOWNS

THE WEALD OF SUSSEX, NORTH OF LEWES

ARUNDEL CASTLE

THE MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER

BOSHAM

THE TUDOR HOUSE, OPPOSITE ST MICHAEL’S CHURCH, SOUTHAMPTON

IN THE NEW FOREST

ROMSEY ABBEY

NORTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

ST CROSS, WINCHESTER

SELBORNE FROM THE HANGER

ENGLAND OF MY HEART

CHAPTER I

THE PILGRIMS’ ROAD TO CANTERBURY

FROM THE TABARD INN TO DARTFORD

When I determined to set out once more to traverse and to possess England of my heart, it was part of my desire first of all to follow, as far as might be, in the footsteps of Chaucer’s pilgrims.  Therefore I sought the Tabard Inn in Southwark.

For true delight, it seems to me, a journey, especially if it be for love or pleasure, should always have about it something of devotion, something a little rigid too, and dutiful, at least in its opening stages; and in thus determining my way I secured this.  For I promised myself that I would start from the place whence they set out so long ago to visit and to pray at the tomb of the greatest of English saints, that I would sleep where they slept, find pleasure in the villages they enjoyed, climb the hills and look on the horizons that greeted them also so many hundred years ago, till at last I stood by the “blissful martyr’s tomb,” that had once made so great a rumour in the world and now was nothing.

In many ways I came short of all this, as will be seen; but especially in one thing—­the matter of time.  Chaucer and his pilgrims are generally thought to have spent three and a half or four days and three nights upon the road.  It is true they went ahorseback and I afoot, but nevertheless a man may easily walk the fifty-six miles from London to Canterbury in four days.  I failed because I found so much to see by the wayside.  And to begin with there was London itself, which I was about to leave.

It was very early on an April morning when I set out from my home, coming through London on foot and crossing the river by London Bridge.  It was there I lingered first, in the half light, as it were to say good-bye.