THE ROADMENDER
ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILL F. TAYLOR
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1922
Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh
A. M. D. G.
TO
MY MOTHER
AND TO EARTH, MY MOTHER
WHOM I LOVE
FOREWORD TO THIS EDITION
The country amid which Margaret Fairless Barber("Michael Fairless") wrote "The Roadmender" isthat central part of Sussex drained by the river Adur,perhaps the least known of the three main rivers,Ouse, Adur and Arun, which breach the SouthDowns. From Chanctonbury Ring to DitchlingBeacon the Downs belong to the Adur, and this isthe country of the Roadmender. Here, from underthe "stunted hawthorn," the eye looks down on theone side to the "little church" on the Weald, andon the other to the more distant "to and fro of thesea." Over all this Wealden valley the "long greydowns" keep watch, and on the inland side aconstant companion of the roads is the spire of"the monastery where the Bedesmen of St Hughwatch and pray."
Michael Fairless wrote Parts I and II of "TheRoadmender" in a farmhouse at Mock Bridge onthe Adur near Henfield, and here in her last daysshe lay writing "The White Gate," looking out overthe "pasture bright with buttercups where the cattlefeed." Here she died, and she was carried to the grave"under the firs in the quiet churchyard" at Ashhurst,two miles away across the river.