Squire Fuller of Brightling

Fuller of Brightling belongs to the county's mythic memory rather than its present: the narrator's proof that Sussex once bred men with the heart of Earl Godwin. His extravagance — the great coach, the roaring hospitality, the obelisk that draws eyes from all around — is offered as a rebuke to the cautious, close-fisted travelers trading shots at the inn. He matters because he gives the pilgrimage its local saint, a standard of largeness the four men measure their own smallness against.