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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Highways & Byways in Sussex, by E.V. Lucas
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Highways & Byways in Sussex
+
+Author: E.V. Lucas
+
+Illustrator: Frederick Griggs
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2007 [EBook #20696]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS IN SUSSEX ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Peter Yearsley, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+               _Highways and Byways in Sussex_
+
+
+
+
+                        BY E. V. LUCAS
+
+                  WITH . ILLUSTRATIONS . BY
+
+                     FREDERICK L. GRIGGS
+
+
+                 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+                ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
+
+                           1921
+
+
+                       _COPYRIGHT._
+
+           _First Edition printed February 1904._
+       _Reprinted, April 1904, 1907, 1912, 1919, 1921._
+
+
+[Illustration: _The Barbican, Lewes Castle._ _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Readers who are acquainted with the earlier volumes of this series will
+not need to be told that they are less guide-books than appreciations of
+the districts with which they are concerned. In the pages that follow my
+aim has been to gather a Sussex bouquet rather than to present the facts
+which the more practical traveller requires.
+
+The order of progress through the country has been determined largely by
+the lines of railway. I have thought it best to enter Sussex in the west
+at Midhurst, making that the first centre, and to zig-zag thence across
+to the east by way of Chichester, Arundel, Petworth, Horsham, Brighton
+(I name only the chief centres), Cuckfield, East Grinstead, Lewes,
+Eastbourne, Hailsham, Hastings, Rye, and Tunbridge Wells; leaving the
+county finally at Withyham, on the borders of Ashdown Forest. For the
+traveller in a carriage or on a bicycle this route is not the best; but
+for those who would explore it slowly on foot (and much of the more
+characteristic scenery of Sussex can be studied only in this way), with
+occasional assistance from the train, it is, I think, as good a scheme
+as any.
+
+I do not suggest that it is necessary for the reader who travels through
+Sussex to take the same route: he would probably prefer to cover the
+county literally strip by strip--the Forest strip from Tunbridge Wells
+to Horsham, the Weald strip from Billingshurst to Burwash, the Downs
+strip from Racton to Beachy Head--rather than follow my course, north to
+south, and south to north, across the land. But the book is, I think,
+the gainer by these tangents, and certainly its author is happier, for
+they bring him again and again back to the Downs.
+
+It is impossible at this date to write about Sussex, in accordance with
+the plan of the present series, without saying a great many things that
+others have said before, and without making use of the historians of the
+county. To the collections of the Sussex Archaeological Society I am
+greatly indebted; also to Mr. J. G. Bishop's _Peep into the Past_, and
+to Mr. W. D. Parish's _Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_. Many other
+works are mentioned in the text.
+
+The history, archaeology, and natural history of the county have been
+thoroughly treated by various writers; but there are, I have noticed,
+fewer books than there should be upon Sussex men and women. Carlyle's
+saying that every clergyman should write the history of his parish
+(which one might amend to the history of his parishioners) has borne too
+little fruit in our district; nor have lay observers arisen in any
+number to atone for the shortcoming. And yet Sussex must be as rich in
+good character, pure, quaint, shrewd, humorous or noble, as any other
+division of England. In the matter of honouring illustrious Sussex men
+and women, the late Mark Antony Lower played his part with _The Worthies
+of Sussex_, and Mr. Fleet with _Glimpses of Our Sussex Ancestors_; but
+the Sussex "Characters," where are they? Who has set down their "little
+unremembered acts," their eccentricities, their sterling southern
+tenacities? The Rev. A. D. Gordon wrote the history of Harting, and
+quite recently the Rev. C. N. Sutton has published his interesting
+_Historical Notes of Withyham, Hartfield, and Ashdown Forest_; and there
+may be other similar parish histories which I am forgetting. But the
+only books that I have seen which make a patient and sympathetic
+attempt to understand the people of Sussex are Mr. Parish's
+_Dictionary_, Mr. Egerton's _Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_, and "John
+Halsham's" _Idlehurst_. How many rare qualities of head and heart must
+go unrecorded in rural England.
+
+I have to thank my friend Mr. C. E. Clayton for his kindness in reading
+the proofs of this book and in suggesting additions.
+
+                                                         E. V. L.
+_December 12, 1903._
+
+P.S.--The sheets of the one-inch ordnance map of Sussex are fourteen in
+all, their numbers running thus:
+
+_________________________________________________________
+|           |           |         |          |           |
+|    300    |    301    |   302   |    303   |    304    |
+| Alresford | Haslemere | Horsham | T. Wells | Tenterden |
+|___________|___________|_________|__________|___________|
+|           |           |         |          |           |
+|    316    |    317    |   318   |    319   |    320    |
+|  Fareham  |Chichester |Brighton |   Lewes  |  Hastings |
+|___________|___________|_________|__________|___________|
+|           |           |         |          |
+|    331    |    332    |   333   |    334   |
+|Portsmouth |  Bognor   | Worthing|Eastbourne|
+|___________|___________|_________|__________|
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
+
+
+In the present edition a number of small errors have been corrected and
+a new chapter amplifying certain points and supplying a deficit here and
+there has been added. The passage about Stane Street is reprinted from
+the _Times Literary Supplement_ by kind permission.
+
+                                                              E. V. L.
+_April 20, 1904_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                          PAGE
+CHAPTER I
+
+MIDHURST                                     1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MIDHURST'S VILLAGES                          9
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FIRST SIGHT OF THE DOWNS                    23
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHICHESTER                                  28
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHICHESTER AND THE HILLS                    39
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHICHESTER AND THE PLAIN                    54
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ARUNDEL AND NEIGHBOURHOOD                   68
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+LITTLEHAMPTON                               75
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AMBERLEY AND PARHAM                         84
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PETWORTH                                    93
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BIGNOR                                     107
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HORSHAM                                    112
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ST. LEONARD'S FOREST                       123
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WEST GRINSTEAD, COWFOLD AND HENFIELD       130
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+STEYNING AND BRAMBER                       135
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHANCTONBURY, WASHINGTON, AND WORTHING     145
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BRIGHTON                                   160
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ROTTINGDEAN AND WHEATEARS                  177
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SHOREHAM                                   184
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DEVIL'S DYKE AND HURSTPIERPOINT        192
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DITCHLING                                  207
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CUCKFIELD                                  211
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FOREST COUNTRY AGAIN                       221
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+EAST GRINSTEAD                             227
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+HORSTED KEYNES TO LEWES                    233
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+LEWES                                      239
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE OUSE VALLEY                            255
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ALFRISTON                                  264
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+SMUGGLING                                  273
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+GLYNDE AND RINGMER                         280
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+UCKFIELD AND BUXTED                        292
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CROWBOROUGH AND MAYFIELD                   301
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+HEATHFIELD AND THE "LIES"                  307
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+EASTBOURNE                                 318
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+PEVENSEY AND HURSTMONCEUX                  328
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+HASTINGS                                   340
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+BATTLE ABBEY                               348
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+WINCHELSEA AND RYE                         358
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+ROBERTSBRIDGE                              376
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+TUNBRIDGE WELLS                            390
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE SUSSEX DIALECT                         405
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+BEING A POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION   417
+
+
+INDEX                                      439
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                          PAGE
+
+THE BARBICAN, LEWES CASTLE      _Frontispiece_
+
+COWDRAY                                      4
+
+BLACKDOWN                                   10
+
+COWDRAY                                     22
+
+CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL                        31
+
+CHICHESTER CROSS                            35
+
+THE RUINED NAVE OF BOXGROVE                 39
+
+BOXGROVE PRIORY CHURCH                      41
+
+BOXGROVE FROM THE SOUTH                     43
+
+EAST LAVANT                                 49
+
+BOSHAM                                      54
+
+ARUNDEL                                     68
+
+THE ARUN AT NORTH STOKE                     71
+
+GATEWAY, AMBERLEY CASTLE                    84
+
+AMBERLEY CASTLE                             87
+
+AMBERLEY CASTLE, ENTRANCE TO CHURCHYARD     89
+
+AMBERLEY CHURCH                             91
+
+PULBOROUGH CHURCH                           93
+
+AT PULBOROUGH                               95
+
+STOPHAM BRIDGE                              97
+
+THE ROTHER AT FITTLEWORTH                   99
+
+ALMSHOUSE AT PETWORTH                      101
+
+PETWORTH CHURCHYARD                        104
+
+THE CAUSEWAY, HORSHAM                      112
+
+COTTAGES AT SLINFOLD                       118
+
+RUDGWICK                                   121
+
+CHURCH STREET, STEYNING                    135
+
+STEYNING CHURCH                            138
+
+BRAMBER                                    140
+
+COOMBES CHURCH                             142
+
+CHANCTONBURY RING                          145
+
+SOMPTING                                   153
+
+LANCING                                    157
+
+NEW SHOREHAM CHURCH                        185
+
+OLD SHOREHAM BRIDGE                        188
+
+OLD SHOREHAM CHURCH                        189
+
+POYNINGS, FROM THE DEVIL'S DYKE            193
+
+HANGLETON HOUSE                            196
+
+MALTHOUSE FARM, HURSTPIERPOINT             200
+
+DITCHLING                                  207
+
+OLD HOUSE AT DITCHLING                     208
+
+CUCKFIELD CHURCH                           212
+
+EAST MASCALLS--BEFORE RENOVATION           219
+
+THE JUDGE'S HOUSES, EAST GRINSTEAD         228
+
+ON THE OUSE, ABOVE LEWES                   239
+
+HIGH STREET, SOUTHOVER                     241
+
+ANN OF CLEVES' HOUSE, SOUTHOVER            246
+
+ST. ANN'S CHURCH, SOUTHOVER                251
+
+THE OUSE AT SOUTH STREET, LEWES            253
+
+THE OUSE AT PIDDINGHOE                     255
+
+RODMELL                                    256
+
+PIDDINGHOE                                 258
+
+SOUTHOVER GRANGE                           261
+
+NEAR TARRING NEVILLE                       263
+
+GLYNDE                                     282
+
+FRAMFIELD                                  293
+
+IN BUXTED PARK                             298
+
+BEACHY HEAD                                318
+
+BEACHY HEAD FROM THE SHORE                 325
+
+PEVENSEY CASTLE                            329
+
+WESTHAM                                    333
+
+HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE                        335
+
+BATTLE ABBEY--THE GATEWAY                  349
+
+MOUNT STREET, BATTLE                       352
+
+BATTLE ABBEY, THE REFECTORY                355
+
+THE LANDGATE, RYE                          359
+
+SEDILIA AND TOMBS OF GERVASE AND
+STEPHEN ALARD, WINCHELSEA                  363
+
+THE YPRES TOWER, RYE                       365
+
+COURT LODGE, UDIMORE                       370
+
+UDIMORE CHURCH                             372
+
+BREDE PLACE                                373
+
+BREDE PLACE, FROM THE SOUTH                375
+
+BODIAM CASTLE                              377
+
+SHOYSWELL, NEAR TICEHURST                  388
+
+THE PANTILES, TUNBRIDGE WELLS              391
+
+BAYHAM ABBEY                               396
+
+ASHDOWN FOREST, FROM EAST GRINSTEAD        403
+
+MAP OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX        _End paper_
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MIDHURST
+
+     The fitting order of a traveller's progress--The Downs the true
+     Sussex--Fashion at bay--Mr. Kipling's topographical
+     creed--Midhurst's advantages--Single railway lines--Queen Elizabeth
+     at Cowdray--Montagus domestic and homicidal--The curse of
+     Cowdray--Dr. Johnson at Midhurst--Cowdray Park.
+
+
+If it is better, in exploring a county, to begin with its least
+interesting districts and to end with the best, I have made a mistake in
+the order of this book: I should rather have begun with the
+comparatively dull hot inland hilly region of the north-east, and have
+left it at the cool chalk Downs of the Hampshire border. But if one's
+first impression of new country cannot be too favourable we have done
+rightly in starting at Midhurst, even at the risk of a loss of
+enthusiasm in the concluding chapters. For although historically,
+socially, and architecturally north Sussex is as interesting as south
+Sussex, the crown of the county's scenery is the Downs, and its most
+fascinating districts are those which the Downs dominate. The farther we
+travel from the Downs and the sea the less unique are our surroundings.
+Many of the villages in the northern Weald, beautiful as they are, might
+equally well be in Kent or Surrey: a visitor suddenly alighting in their
+midst, say from a balloon, would be puzzled to name the county he was
+in; but the Downs and their dependencies are essential Sussex. Hence a
+Sussex man in love with the Downs becomes less happy at every step
+northward.
+
+[Sidenote: THE INVIOLATE HILLS]
+
+One cause of the unique character of the Sussex Downs is their virginal
+security, their unassailable independence. They stand, a silent
+undiscovered country, between the seething pleasure towns of the
+seaboard plain and the trim estates of the Weald. Londoners, for whom
+Sussex has a special attraction by reason of its proximity (Brighton's
+beach is the nearest to the capital in point of time), either pause
+north of the Downs, or rush through them in trains, on bicycles, or in
+carriages, to the sea. Houses there are among the Downs, it is true, but
+they are old-established, the homes of families that can remember no
+other homes. There is as yet no fashion for residences in these
+altitudes. Until that fashion sets in (and may it be far distant) the
+Downs will remain essential Sussex, and those that love them will
+exclaim with Mr. Kipling,
+
+
+     God gave all men all earth to love,
+       But since man's heart is small,
+     Ordains for each one spot shall prove
+       Beloved over all.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Each to his choice, and I rejoice
+       The lot has fallen to me
+     In a fair ground--in a fair ground--
+       Yea, Sussex by the sea!
+
+
+[Sidenote: MIDHURST]
+
+If we are to begin our travels in Sussex with the best, then Midhurst is
+the starting point, for no other spot has so much to offer: a quiet
+country town, gabled and venerable, unmodernised and unambitious, with a
+river, a Tudor ruin, a park of deer, heather commons, immense woods, and
+the Downs only three miles distant. Moreover, Midhurst is also the
+centre of a very useful little railway system, which, having only a
+single line in each direction, while serving the traveller, never annoys
+him by disfiguring the country or letting loose upon it crowds of
+vandals. Single lines always mean thinly populated country. As a
+pedestrian poet has sung:--
+
+
+     My heart leaps up when I behold
+       A single railway line;
+     For then I know the wood and wold
+       Are almost wholly mine.
+
+
+And Midhurst being on no great high road is nearly always quiet. Nothing
+ever hurries there. The people live their own lives, passing along their
+few narrow streets and the one broad one, under the projecting eaves of
+timbered houses, unrecking of London and the world. Sussex has no more
+contented town.
+
+The church, which belongs really to St. Mary Magdalen, but is popularly
+credited to St. Denis, was never very interesting, but is less so now
+that the Montagu tomb has been moved to Easebourne. Twenty years ago, I
+remember, an old house opposite the church was rumoured to harbour a
+pig-faced lady. I never had sight of her, but as to her existence and
+her cast of feature no one was in the least doubt. Pig-faced ladies
+(once so common) seem to have gone out, just as the day of Spring-heeled
+Jack is over. Sussex once had her Spring-heeled Jacks, too, in some
+profusion.
+
+[Illustration: _Cowdray._]
+
+[Sidenote: ELIZABETH AT COWDRAY]
+
+Cowdray Park is gained from the High Street, just below the Angel Inn,
+by a causeway through water meadows of the Rother. The house is now but
+a shell, never having been rebuilt since the fire which ate out its
+heart in 1793: yet a beautiful shell, heavily draped in rich green ivy
+that before very long must here and there forget its earlier duty of
+supporting the walls and thrust them too far from the perpendicular to
+stand. Cowdray, built in the reign of Henry VIII., did not come to its
+full glory until Sir Anthony Browne, afterwards first Viscount Montagu,
+took possession. The seal was put upon its fame by the visit of Queen
+Elizabeth in 1591 (Edward VI. had been banqueted there by Sir Anthony in
+1552, "marvellously, nay, rather excessively," as he wrote), as some
+return for the loyalty of her host, who, although an old man, in 1588,
+on the approach of the Armada, had ridden straightway to Tilbury, with
+his sons and his grandson, the first to lay the service of his house at
+her Majesty's feet. A rare pamphlet is still preserved describing the
+festivities during Queen Elizabeth's sojourn. On Saturday, about eight
+o'clock, her Majesty reached the house, travelling from Farnham, where
+she had dined. Upon sight of her loud music sounded. It stopped when she
+set foot upon the bridge, and a real man, standing between two wooden
+dummies whom he exactly resembled, began to flatter her exceedingly.
+Until she came, he said, the walls shook and the roof tottered, but one
+glance from her eyes had steadied the turret for ever. He went on to
+call her virtue immortal and herself the Miracle of Time, Nature's
+Glory, Fortune's Empress, and the World's Wonder. Elizabeth, when he had
+made an end, took the key from him and embraced Lady Montagu and her
+daughter, the Lady Dormir; whereupon "the mistress of the house (as it
+were weeping in the bosome) said, 'O happie time! O joyfull daie!'"
+
+[Sidenote: A QUEEN'S DIVERSIONS]
+
+These preliminaries over, the fun began. At breakfast next morning three
+oxen and a hundred and forty geese were devoured. On Monday, August
+17th, Elizabeth rode to her bower in the park, took a crossbow from a
+nymph who sang a sweet song, and with it shot "three or four" deer,
+carefully brought within range. After dinner, standing on one of the
+turrets she watched sixteen bucks "pulled down with greyhounds" in a
+lawn. On Tuesday, the Queen was approached by a pilgrim, who first
+called her "Fairest of all creatures," and expressed the wish that the
+world might end with her life and then led her to an oak whereon were
+hanging escutcheons of her Majesty and all the neighbouring noblemen and
+gentlemen. As she looked, a "wilde man" clad all in ivy appeared and
+delivered an address on the importance of loyalty. On Wednesday, the
+Queen was taken to a goodlie fish-pond (now a meadow) where was an
+angler. After some words from him a band of fishermen approached,
+drawing their nets after them; whereupon the angler, turning to her
+Majesty, remarked that her virtue made envy blush and stand amazed.
+Having thus spoken, the net was drawn and found to be full of fish,
+which were laid at Elizabeth's feet. The entry for this day ends with
+the sentence, "That evening she hunted." On Thursday the lords and
+ladies dined at a table forty-eight yards long, and there was a country
+dance with tabor and pipe, which drew from her Majesty "gentle
+applause." On Friday, the Queen knighted six gentlemen and passed on to
+Chichester.
+
+[Sidenote: A DESPERADO POET]
+
+A year later the first Lord Montagu died. He was succeeded by another
+Anthony, the author of the "Book of Orders and Rules" for the use of the
+family at Cowdray, and the dedicatee of Anthony Copley's _Fig for
+Fortune_, 1596. Copley has a certain Sussex interest of his own, having
+astonished not a little the good people of Horsham. A contemporary
+letter describes him as "the most desperate youth that liveth. He did
+shoot at a gentleman last summer, and did kill an ox with a musket, and
+in Horsham church he threw his dagger at the parish clerk, and it stuck
+in a seat of the church. There liveth not his like in England for sudden
+attempts." Subsequently the conspirator-poet must have calmed down, for
+he states in the dedication to my lord that he is "now winnowed by the
+fan of grace and Zionry." To-day he would say "saved." Copley, after
+narrowly escaping capital punishment for his share in a Jesuit plot,
+disappeared.
+
+The instructions given in Lord Montagu's "Booke of Orders and Rules"
+illustrate very vividly the generous amplitude of the old Cowdray
+establishment. Thus:--
+
+
+     MY CARVER AND HIS OFFICE.
+
+     I will that my carver, when he cometh to the ewerye boorde, doe
+     there washe together with the Sewer, and that done be armed
+     (videlt.) with an armeinge towell cast about his necke, and putt
+     under his girdle on both sides, and one napkyn on his lefte
+     shoulder, and an other on the same arme; and thence beinge broughte
+     by my Gentleman Usher to my table, with two curteseyes thereto, the
+     one about the middest of the chamber, the other when he cometh to
+     ytt, that he doe stande seemely and decently with due reverence and
+     sylence, untill my dyett and fare be brought uppe, and then doe his
+     office; and when any meate is to be broken uppe that he doe carrye
+     itt to a syde table, which shalbe prepared for that purpose and
+     there doe ytt; when he hath taken upp the table, and delivered the
+     voyder to the yeoman Usher, he shall doe reverence and returne to
+     the ewrye boorde there to be unarmed. My will is that for that day
+     he have the precedence and place next to my Gentleman Usher at the
+     wayter's table.
+
+
+     MY GENTLEMEN WAYTERS.
+
+     I will that some of my Gentlemen Wayters harken when I or my wiffe
+     att any tyme doe walke abroade, that they may be readye to give
+     their attendance uppon us, some att one tyme and some att another
+     as they shall agree amongst themselves; but when strangeres are in
+     place, then I will that in any sorte they be readye to doe such
+     service for them as the Gentleman Usher shall directe. I will
+     further that they be dayly presente in the greate chamber or other
+     place of my dyett about tenn of the clocke in the forenoone and
+     five in the afternoone without fayle for performance of my service,
+     unles they have license from my Stewarde or Gentleman Usher to the
+     contrarye, which if they exceede, I will that they make knowne the
+     cause thereof to my Stewarde, who shall acquaynte me therewithall.
+     I will that they dyne and suppe att a table appoynted for them, and
+     there take place nexte after the Gentlemen of my Horse and chamber,
+     accordinge to their seniorityes in my service.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF MONTAGU]
+
+The third Viscount Montagu was not remarkable, but his account books are
+quaint reading. From July, 1657, to July, 1658, his steward spent
+_L_1,945 10_s._ solely in little personal matters for his master. Among
+the disbursements were, on September 11th, fourteen pence "for washing
+Will Stapler"; on November 22nd, 1_s._ 4_d._ to the Lewes carrier "for
+bringing a box of puddings for my mistress and my master"; on January
+17th, _L_4 to "Mr. Fiske the dancing-master for teaching my master to
+dance, being two months"; and on April 21st, seven shillings "for a
+Tooth for my Lord."
+
+The fifth Viscount was a man of violent temper. On reaching Mass one day
+and finding it half done, he drew his pistol and shot the chaplain. The
+outcry all over the country was loud and vengeful, and my lord lay
+concealed for fifteen years in a hiding-hole contrived in the masonry of
+Cowdray for the shelter of persecuted priests. The peer emerged only at
+night, when he roamed the close walks, repentant and sad. Lady Montagu
+would then steal out to him, dressing all in white to such good purpose
+that the desired rumours of a ghost soon flew about the neighbourhood.
+
+The curse of Cowdray, which, if genuinely pronounced, has certainly been
+wonderfully fulfilled, dates from the gift of Battle Abbey by Henry
+VIII. to Sir Anthony Browne, the father of Queen Elizabeth's host and
+friend. Sir Anthony seized his new property, and turned the monks out
+of the gates, in 1538. Legend says that as the last monk departed, he
+warned his despoiler that by fire and water his line should perish. By
+fire and water it perished indeed. A week after Cowdray House was
+burned, in 1793, the last Viscount Montagu was drowned in the Rhine. His
+only sister (the wife of Mr. Stephen Poyntz) who inherited, was the
+mother of two sons both of whom were drowned while bathing at Bognor.
+When Mr. Poyntz sold the estate to the Earl of Egmont, we may suppose
+the curse to have been withdrawn.
+
+[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON AT COWDRAY]
+
+Among the treasures that were destroyed in the fire were the Roll of
+Battle Abbey and many paintings. Dr. Johnson visited Cowdray a few years
+before its demolition; "Sir," he said to Boswell, "I should like to stay
+here four-and-twenty hours. We see here how our ancestors lived."
+According to the _Tour of Great Britain_, attributed to Daniel Defoe,
+but probably by another hand, Cowdray's hall was of Irish oak. In the
+large parlour were the triumphs of Henry VIII. by Holbein. In the long
+gallery were the Twelve Apostles "as large as life"; while the marriage
+of Cupid and Psyche, a tableau that never failed to please our
+ancestors, was not wanting.
+
+The glory of the Montagus has utterly passed. The present Earl of Egmont
+is either an absentee or he lives in a cottage near the gates; and the
+new house, which is hidden in trees, is of no interest. The park,
+however, is still ranged by its beautiful deer, and still possesses an
+avenue of chestnut trees and rolling wastes of turf. It is everywhere as
+free as a heath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MIDHURST'S VILLAGES
+
+     Hanging in chains--A wooded paradise--Fernhurst--Shulbrede
+     Priory--Blackdown--Tennyson's Sussex home--Thomas Otway--Kate
+     Hotspur's Grave--A Sussex ornithologist--The friend of
+     owls--William Cobbett looks at the Squire--The charms of South
+     Harting--Lady Mary Caryll's little difficulties--Gilbert White in
+     Sussex--The old field routine--Witchcraft at South Harting--The
+     Rother--Easebourne--West Lavington and Cardinal Manning.
+
+
+The road from Midhurst to Blackdown ascends steadily to Henley,
+threading vast woods and preserves. On the left is a great common, on
+the right North Heath, where the two Drewitts were hanged in chains
+after being executed at Horsham, in 1799, for the robbery of the
+Portsmouth mail--probably the last instance of hanging in chains in this
+country. For those that like wild forest country there was once no
+better ramble than might be enjoyed here; but now (1903) that the King's
+new sanatorium is being built in the midst of Great Common, some of the
+wildness must necessarily be lost. A finer site could not have been
+found. Above Great Common is a superb open space nearly six hundred feet
+high, with gorse bushes advantageously placed to give shelter while one
+studies the Fernhurst valley, the Haslemere heights and, blue in the
+distance, the North Downs. Sussex has nothing wilder or richer than the
+country we are now in.
+
+A few minutes' walk to the east from this lofty common, and we are
+immediately above Henley, clinging to the hill side, an almost Alpine
+hamlet. Henley, however, no longer sees the travellers that once it did,
+for the coach road, which of old climbed perilously through it, has been
+diverted in a curve through the hanger, and now sweeps into Fernhurst by
+way of Henley Common.
+
+[Illustration: _Blackdown._]
+
+[Sidenote: FERNHURST]
+
+Fernhurst, beautifully named, is in an exquisite situation among the
+minor eminences of the Haslemere range, but the builder has been busy
+here, and the village is not what it was.
+
+[Sidenote: SHULBREDE PRIORY]
+
+Two miles to the north-west, on the way to Linchmere, immediately under
+the green heights of Marley, is the old house which once was Shulbrede
+Priory. As it is now in private occupation and is not shown to
+strangers, I have not seen it; but of old many persons journeyed
+thither, attracted by the quaint mural paintings, in the Prior's room,
+of domestic animals uttering speech. "Christus natus est," crows the
+cock. "Quando? Quando?" the duck inquires. "In hac nocte," says the
+raven. "Ubi? Ubi?" asks the cow, and the lamb satisfies her: "Bethlehem,
+Bethlehem."
+
+One may return deviously from Shulbrede to Midhurst (passing in the
+heart of an unpopulated country a hamlet called Milland, where is an old
+curiosity shop of varied resources) by way of one of the pleasantest and
+narrowest lanes that I know, rising and falling for miles through silent
+woods, coming at last to Chithurst church, one of the smallest and
+simplest and least accessible in the county, and reaching Midhurst again
+by the hard, dry and irreproachable road that runs between the heather
+of Trotton Common.
+
+On the eastern side of Fernhurst, to which we may now return, a mile on
+the way to Lurgashall, was once Verdley Castle; but it is now a castle
+no more, merely a ruined heap. Utilitarianism was too much for it, and
+its stones fell to Macadam. After all, if an old castle has to go, there
+are few better forms of reincarnation for it than a good hard road.
+While at Fernhurst it is well to walk on to Blackdown, the best way,
+perhaps, being to take the lane to the right about half a mile beyond
+the village, and make for the hill across country. Blackdown, whose
+blackness is from its heather and its firs, frowns before one all the
+while. The climb to the summit is toilsome, over nine hundred feet, but
+well worth the effort, for the hill overlooks hundreds of square miles
+of Sussex and Surrey, between Leith Hill in the north and Chanctonbury
+in the south.
+
+[Sidenote: TENNYSON'S SUSSEX HOME]
+
+Aldworth, Tennyson's house, is on the north-east slope, facing Surrey.
+The poet laid the foundation stone on April 23 (Shakespeare's birthday),
+1868: the inscription on the stone running "Prosper thou the work of our
+hands, O prosper thou our handiwork." Of the site Aubrey de Vere
+wrote:--"It lifted England's great poet to a height from which he could
+gaze on a large portion of that English land which he loved so well, see
+it basking in its most affluent summer beauty, and only bounded by 'the
+inviolate sea.' Year after year he trod its two stately terraces with
+men the most noted of their time." Pilgrims from all parts journeyed
+thither--not too welcome; among them that devout American who had worked
+his way across the Atlantic in order to recite _Maud_ to its author: a
+recitation from which, says the present Lord Tennyson, his father
+"suffered." Tennyson has, I think, no poems upon his Sussex home, but I
+always imagine that the dedication of _The Death of Oenone and other
+Poems_, in 1894, must belong to Blackdown:--
+
+
+     There on the top of the down,
+     The wild heather round me and over me June's high blue,
+     When I look'd at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown,
+     I thought to myself I would offer this book to you,
+     This, and my love together,
+     To you that are seventy-seven,
+     With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,
+     And a fancy as summer-new
+     As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.
+
+
+The most interesting village between Midhurst and the western boundary,
+due west, is Trotton, three miles distant on the superb road to
+Petersfield, of which I have spoken above. There is no better road in
+England. Trotton is quiet and modest, but it has two great claims on
+lovers of the English drama. In the "Ode to Pity" of one of our Sussex
+poets we read thus of another:--
+
+
+     But wherefore need I wander wide
+     To old Ilissus' distant side,
+       Deserted streams and mute?
+     Wild Arun, too, has heard thy strains,
+     And echo, 'midst my native plains,
+       Been soothed by pity's lute.
+
+     There first the wren thy myrtles shed
+     On gentlest Otway's infant head,
+       To him thy cell was shown;
+     And while he sung the female heart,
+     With youth's soft notes unspoiled by art,
+       Thy turtles mixed their own.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THOMAS OTWAY]
+
+So wrote William Collins, adding in a note that the Arun (more properly
+the Rother, a tributary of the Arun) runs by the village of Trotton, in
+Sussex, where Thomas Otway had his birth. The unhappy author of _Venice
+Preserv'd_ and _The Orphan_ was born at Trotton in 1652, the son of
+Humphrey Otway, the curate, who afterwards became rector of Woolbeding
+close by. Otway died miserably when only thirty-three, partly of
+starvation, partly of a broken heart at the unresponsiveness of Mrs.
+Barry, the actress, whom he loved, but who preferred the Earl of
+Rochester. His two best plays, although they are no longer acted, lived
+for many years, providing in Belvidera, in _Venice Preserv'd_ and
+Monimia, in _The Orphan_ (in which he "sung the female heart") congenial
+_roles_ for tragic actresses--Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Cibber,
+Mrs. Siddons and Miss O'Neill. Otway was buried in the churchyard of St.
+Clement Danes, but a tablet to his fame is in Trotton church, which is
+of unusual plainness, not unlike an ecclesiastical barn. Here also is
+the earliest known brass to a woman--Margaret de Camoys, who lived about
+1300.
+
+[Sidenote: HOTSPUR'S LADY]
+
+The transition is easy (at Trotton) from Otway to Shakespeare, from
+_Venice Preserv'd_ to _Henry IV._
+
+
+     HOTSPUR (to LADY PERCY). Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying
+     down: come quick, quick; that I may lay my head in thy lap.
+
+     _Lady P._ Go, ye giddy goose.              [_The music plays._
+
+     _Hot._ Now I perceive, the devil understands Welsh;
+            And 't is no marvel' he's so humorous,
+            By'r lady, he's a good musician.
+
+     _Lady P._ Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are
+     altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the
+     lady sing in Welsh.
+
+     _Hot._ I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.
+
+     _Lady P._ Wouldst have thy head broken?
+
+     _Hot._ No.
+
+     _Lady P._ Then be still.
+
+     _Hot._ Neither: 'tis a woman's fault.
+
+     _Lady P._ Now God help thee!
+
+     _Hot._ To the Welsh lady's bed.
+
+     _Lady P._ What's that?
+
+     _Hot._ Peace! she sings.
+
+                                [_A Welsh song sung by_ LADY MORTIMER.
+
+     _Hot._ Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.
+
+     _Lady P._ Not mine, in good sooth.
+
+     _Hot._ Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart, you swear like a
+     comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth'; and, 'As true as I
+     live'; and,
+
+            'As God shall mend me'; and, 'As sure as day':
+            And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
+            As if thou never walk'dst further than Finsbury.
+            Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
+            A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth,'
+            And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
+            To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens.
+            Come, sing.
+
+     _Lady P._ I will not sing.
+
+     _Hot._ 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher.
+     An the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours; and
+     so come in when ye will.                                 [_Exit._
+
+
+My excuse for introducing this little scene is that Kate, whose real
+name was Elizabeth, lies here. Her tomb is in the chancel, where she
+reposes beside her second husband Thomas, Lord Camoys, beneath a slab on
+which are presentments in brass of herself and her lord. It was this
+Lord Camoys who rebuilt Trotton's church, about 1400, and who also gave
+the village its beautiful bridge over the Rother at a cost, it used to
+be said, of only a few pence less than that of the church.
+
+Trotton has still other literary claims. At Trotton Place lived Arthur
+Edward Knox, whose _Ornithological Rambles in Sussex_, published in
+1849, is one of the few books worthy to stand beside White's _Natural
+History of Selborne_. In Sussex, as elsewhere, the fowler has prevailed,
+and although rare birds are still occasionally to be seen, they now
+visit the country only by accident, and leave it as soon as may be,
+thankful to have a whole skin. Guns were active enough in Knox's time,
+but to read his book to-day is to be translated to a new land. From time
+to time I shall borrow from Mr. Knox's pages: here I may quote a short
+passage which refers at once to his home and to his attitude to those
+creatures whom he loved to study and studied to love:--"I have the
+satisfaction of exercising the rites of hospitality towards a pair of
+barn owls, which have for some time taken up their quarters in one of
+the attic roofs of the ancient, ivy-covered house in which I reside. I
+delight in listening to the prolonged snoring of the young when I ascend
+the old oak stairs to the neighbourhood of their nursery, and in hearing
+the shriek of the parent birds on the calm summer nights as they pass to
+and fro near my window; for it assures me that they are still safe; and
+as I know that at least a qualified protection is afforded them
+elsewhere, and that even their arch-enemy the gamekeeper is beginning
+reluctantly, but gradually, to acquiesce in the general belief of their
+innocence and utility, I cannot help indulging the hope that this bird
+will eventually meet with that general encouragement and protection to
+which its eminent services so richly entitle it."
+
+[Sidenote: COBBETT LOOKS AT THE SQUIRE]
+
+One more literary association: it was at Trotton that William Cobbett
+looked at the squire. "From Rogate we came on to Trotton, where a Mr.
+Twyford is the squire, and where there is a very fine and ancient church
+close by the squire's house. I saw the squire looking at some poor
+devils who were making 'wauste improvements, ma'am,' on the road which
+passes by the squire's door. He looked uncommonly hard at me. It was a
+scrutinising sort of look, mixed, as I thought, with a little surprise,
+if not of jealousy, as much as to say, 'I wonder who the devil you can
+be?' My look at the squire was with the head a little on one side, and
+with the cheek drawn up from the left corner of the mouth, expressive of
+anything rather than a sense of inferiority to the squire, of whom,
+however, I had never heard speak before."
+
+[Sidenote: HARTING'S RICHES]
+
+By passing on to Rogate, whose fine church not long since was restored
+too freely, and turning due south, we come to what is perhaps the most
+satisfying village in all Sussex--South Harting. Cool and spacious and
+retired, it lies under the Downs, with a little subsidiary range of its
+own to shelter it also from the west. Three inns are ready to refresh
+the traveller--the Ship, the White Hart (a favourite Sussex sign), and
+the Coach and Horses (with a new signboard of dazzling freshness); the
+surrounding country is good; Petersfield and Midhurst are less than an
+hour's drive distant; while the village has one of the most charming
+churches in Sussex, both without and within. Unlike most of the county's
+spires, South Harting's is slate and red shingle, but the slate is of an
+agreeable green hue, resembling old copper. (Perhaps it is copper.) The
+roof is of red tiles mellowed by weather, and the south side of the
+tower is tiled too, imparting an unusual suggestion of warmth--more, of
+comfort--to the structure; while on the east wall of the chancel is a
+Virginian creeper, which, as autumn advances, emphasises this effect.
+Within, the church is winning, too, with its ample arches, perfect
+proportions, and that aesthetic satisfaction that often attends the
+cruciform shape. An interesting monument of the Cowper and Coles
+families is preserved in the south transept--three full-size coloured
+figures. In the north transept is a spiral staircase leading to the
+tower, and elsewhere are memorials of the Fords and Featherstonhaughs of
+Up-Park, a superb domain over the brow of Harting's Down, and of the
+Carylls of Lady Holt, of whom we shall see more directly. The east
+window is a peculiarly cheerful one, and the door of South Harting
+church is kept open, as every church door should be, but as too many in
+Sussex are not.
+
+In the churchyard, beneath a shed, are the remains of two tombs, with
+recumbent stone figures, now in a fragmentary state. At the church gates
+are the old village stocks.
+
+[Sidenote: MRS. JONES' MULYGRUBES]
+
+Harting has a place in literature, for one of the Carylls was Pope's
+friend, John (1666-1736), a nephew of the diplomatist and dramatist.
+Pope's Caryll, who suggested _The Rape of the Lock_, lived at Lady Holt
+at West Harting (long destroyed) and also at West Grinstead, where, as
+we shall see, the poem was largely written. Mr. H. D. Gordon, rector of
+Harting for many years, wrote a history of his parish in 1877: a very
+interesting, gossipy book; where we may read much of the Caryll family,
+including passages from their letters--how Lady Mary Caryll had the kind
+impulse to take one of the parson's nine daughters to France to educate
+and befriend, but was so thoughtless as to transform into a pretty
+Papist; how Lady Mary disliked Mrs. Jones, the steward's wife; and many
+other matters. I quote a passage from a letter of Lady Mary's about Mrs.
+Jones, showing that human nature was not then greatly different from
+what it is to-day:--"Mr. Joans and his fine Madam came down two days
+before your birthday and expected to lye in the house, but as I
+apprehended the consequence of letting them begin so, I made an excuse
+for want of roome by expecting company, and sent them to Gould's [Arthur
+Gould married Kate Caryll, and lived at Harting Place], where they
+stayed two nights. I invited them the next day to dinner and they came,
+but the day following Madam huff'd (I believe), for she went away to
+Barnard's, and wou'd not so much as see the desert [dessert]; however, I
+don't repent it, he has been here at all the merryment, and I believe
+you'll find it better to keep them at a civil distance than other ways,
+for she seems a high dame and not very good humoured, for she has been
+sick ever since of the mulygrubes." Mrs. Jones soon afterwards succumbed
+either to the mulygrubes or a worse visitation. Lady Mary thus broke the
+news:--"Mr. Jones's wife dyed on Sunday, just as she lived, an
+Independent, and wou'd have no parson with her, because she sayd she
+cou'd pray as well as they. He is making a great funerall, but I believe
+not in much affection, for he was all night at a merry bout two days
+before she died."
+
+On the arrival of the young Squire Caryll at Lady Holt with his bride,
+in 1739, Paul Kelly, the bailiff, informed Lady Mary that the villagers
+conducted their lord and lady home "with the upermost satisfaction"--a
+good phrase.
+
+Mr. Gordon writes elsewhere in his book of a famous writer whom
+Hampshire claims: "For at least forty years (1754-1792) Gilbert White
+was an East Harting squire. The bulk of his property was at Woodhouse
+and Nye woods, on the northern slope of East Harting, and bounded on the
+west by the road to Harting station. The passenger from Harting to the
+railway has on his right, immediately opposite the 'Severals' wood,
+Gilbert White's Farm, extending nearly to the station. White had also
+other Harting lands. These were upon the Downs, viz.:--a portion of the
+Park of Uppark on the south side, and a portion of Kildevil Lane, on the
+North Marden side of Harting Hill. Gilbert White was on his mother's
+side a Ford, and these lands had been transmitted to him through his
+great uncle, Oliver Whitby, nephew to Sir Edward Ford."
+
+[Sidenote: THE OLD FIELD ROUTINE]
+
+A glimpse of the old Sussex field routine, not greatly changed in the
+remote districts to-day, was given to Mr. Gordon thirty years ago by an
+aged labourer. This was the day:--"Out in morning at four o'clock.
+Mouthful of bread and cheese and pint of ale. Then off to the harvest
+field. Rippin and moen [reaping and mowing] till eight. Then morning
+brakfast and small beer. Brakfast--a piece of fat pork as thick as your
+hat [a broad-brimmed wideawake] is wide. Then work till ten o'clock:
+then a mouthful of bread and cheese and a pint of strong beer
+['farnooner,' _i.e._, forenooner; 'farnooner's-lunch,' we called it].
+Work till twelve. Then at dinner in the farm-house; sometimes a leg of
+mutton, sometimes a piece of ham and plum pudding. Then work till five,
+then a _nunch_ and a quart of ale. Nunch was cheese, 'twas skimmed
+cheese though. Then work till sunset, then home and have supper and a
+pint of ale. I never knew a man drunk in the harvest field in my life.
+Could drink six quarts, and believe that a man might drink two gallons
+in a day. All of us were in the house [_i.e._, the usual hired servants,
+and those specially engaged for the harvest]: the yearly servants used
+to go with the monthly ones.
+
+"There were two thrashers, and the head thrasher used always to go
+before the reapers. A man could cut according to the goodness of the
+job, half-an-acre a day. The terms of wages were _L_3 10_s._ to 50_s._
+for the month.
+
+"When the hay was in cock or the wheat in shock, then the Titheman come;
+you didn't dare take up a field without you let him know. If the
+Titheman didn't come at the time, you tithed yourself. He marked his
+sheaves with a bough or bush. You couldn't get over the Titheman. If you
+began at a hedge and made the tenth cock smaller than the rest, the
+Titheman might begin in the middle just where he liked. The Titheman at
+Harting, old John Blackmore, lived at Mundy's [South Harting Street].
+His grandson is blacksmith at Harting now. All the tithing was quiet.
+You didn't dare even set your eggs till the Titheman had been and ta'en
+his tithe. The usual day's work was from 7 to 5."
+
+[Sidenote: A SUSSEX WITCH]
+
+Like all Sussex villages, Harting has had its witches and possessors of
+the evil eye. Most curious of these was old Mother Digby (_nee_ Mollen),
+who, in Mr. Gordon's words, lived at a house in Hog's Lane, East
+Harting, and had the power of witching herself into a hare, and was
+continually, like Hecate, attended by dogs. Squire Russell, of Tye Oak,
+always lost his hare at the sink-hole of a drain near by the old lady's
+house. One day the dogs caught hold of the hare by its hind quarters,
+but it escaped down the drain, and Squire Russell, instantly opening the
+old beldame's door, found her rubbing the part of her body corresponding
+to that by which the hound had seized the hare. Squire Caryll, however,
+declined to be hard on the broomstick and its riders, as the following
+entry in the records of the Court Leet, held for the Hundred of Dumford
+in 1747, shows:--"Also we present the Honble. John Caryll, Esq., Lord of
+this Mannor, for not having and keeping a Ducking Stool within the said
+Hundred of Dumford according to law, for the ducking of scolds and other
+disorderly persons."
+
+[Sidenote: THE BEACON FIRES]
+
+The road from South Harting to Elsted runs under the hills, which here
+rise abruptly from the fields, to great heights, notably Beacon Hill,
+like a huge green mammoth, 800 feet high, on which, before the days of
+telegraphy, lived the signaller, who passed on the tidings of danger on
+the coast to the next beacon hill, above Henley, and so on to London. In
+the days of Napoleon, when any moment might reveal the French fleet, the
+Sussex hill tops must often have smouldered under false alarms. The next
+hill in the east is Treyford Hill, above Treyford village, whose church
+tower, standing on a little hill of its own nearly three hundred feet
+high, might take a lesson in beauty from South Harting's, although its
+spire has a slenderness not to be improved. Next to Treyford Hill is
+Didling Hill, above Didling, and then Linch Down, highest of all in
+these parts, being 818 feet.
+
+Elsted, which has no particular interest, possesses an inn, the Three
+Horse Shoes, on a site superior to that of many a nobleman's house. It
+stands high above a rocky lane, commanding a superb sidelong view of the
+Downs and the Weald.
+
+Midhurst's river is the Rother (not to be confounded with the Rother in
+the east of Sussex), which flows into the Arun near Hardham. It is wide
+enough at Midhurst for small boats, and is a very graceful stream on
+which to idle and watch the few kingfishers that man has spared. One may
+walk by its side for miles and hear no sound save the music of
+repose--the soft munching of the cows in the meadows, the chuckle of the
+water as a rat slips in, the sudden yet soothing plash caused by a
+jumping fish. Around one's head in the evening the stag-beetle buzzes
+with its multiplicity of wings and fierce lobster-like claws
+out-stretched.
+
+Following the Rother to the west one comes first to Easebourne, a shady
+cool village only a few steps from Midhurst, once notable for its
+Benedictine Priory of nuns. Henry VIII. put an end to its religious
+life, which, however, if we may believe the rather disgraceful
+revelations divulged at an episcopal examination, for some years had not
+been of too sincere a character. In Easebourne church is the handsome
+tomb of the first Viscount Montagu (the host of Queen Elizabeth), which
+was brought hither from Midhurst church some forty years ago. Beyond
+Easebourne, on the banks of the Rother, is Woolbeding, amid lush grass
+and foliage, as green a spot as any in green England.
+
+[Sidenote: MR. LA THANGUE'S HOME]
+
+On the eastern side of the town (with a diversion into Queen Elizabeth's
+sombre wood-walk) one may come by the side of the river part of the way
+to West Lavington, which stands high on a slope facing the Downs, with
+pine woods immediately beneath it, perhaps as fair a site as any church
+can claim. The grave of Richard Cobden, the Free Trader, a native of
+Heyshott, near by, is in the churchyard. Here, in 1850, Henry Edward
+Manning, afterwards Cardinal, preached his last sermon for the Church of
+England. It is, indeed, Manning country, for besides being curate and
+rector of Woollavington with Graffham (four or five miles to the
+south-east) from 1833 until his secession, he was for nine years
+Archdeacon of Chichester; he married Miss Sargent, daughter of the late
+rector and sister of Mrs. Samuel Wilberforce of Woollavington; and while
+rector, he rebuilt both churches. Graffham is interesting also as being
+the present home of one of the most truthful of living painters, Mr.
+Henry La Thangue, whose scenes of peasants at work (in the manner of
+Barbizon) and studies of sunlight spattering through the trees are among
+the triumphs of modern English art.
+
+[Sidenote: CIDER'S DISAPPEARANCE]
+
+One more village and we will make for the hills. A mile beyond the
+eastern gate of Cowdray Park is Lodsworth, still a paradise of apple
+orchards, but no longer famous for its cider as once it was. Arthur
+Young had the pleasure of tasting some Lodsworth cider of a superior
+quality at Lord Egremont's table at the beginning of the last century,
+but I doubt if Petworth House honours the beverage to-day. Cider, except
+in the cider country, becomes less and less common.
+
+[Illustration: _Cowdray._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FIRST SIGHT OF THE DOWNS
+
+     The Sussex hills--Gilbert White's praise--Britons, Romans,
+     Saxons--Charles the Second's ride through Sussex.
+
+
+Between Midhurst and Chichester, our next centre, rise the Downs, to a
+height of between seven hundred and eight hundred feet. Although we
+shall often be crossing them again before we leave the county, I should
+like to speak of them a little in this place.
+
+The Downs are the symbol of Sussex. The sea, the Weald, the heather
+hills of her great forest district, she shares with other counties, but
+the Downs are her own. Wiltshire, Berkshire, Kent and Hampshire, it is
+true, have also their turf-covered chalk hills, but the Sussex Downs are
+vaster, more remarkable, and more beautiful than these, with more
+individuality and charm. At first they have been known to disappoint the
+traveller, but one has only to live among them or near them, within the
+influence of their varying moods, and they surely conquer. They are the
+smoothest things in England, gigantic, rotund, easy; the eye rests upon
+their gentle contours and is at peace. They have no sublimity, no
+grandeur, only the most spacious repose. Perhaps it is due to this
+quality that the Wealden folk, accustomed to be overshadowed by this
+unruffled range, are so deliberate in their mental processes and so
+averse from speculation or experiment. There is a hypnotism of form: a
+rugged peak will alarm the mind where a billowy green undulation will
+lull it. The Downs change their complexion, but are never other than
+soothing and still: no stress of weather produces in them any of that
+sense of fatality that one is conscious of in Westmoreland.
+Thunder-clouds empurple the turf and blacken the hangers, but they
+cannot break the imperturbable equanimity of the line; rain throws over
+the range a gauze veil of added softness; a mist makes them more
+wonderful, unreal, romantic; snow brings them to one's doors. At sunrise
+they are magical, a background for Malory; at sunset they are the lovely
+home of the serenest thoughts, a spectacle for Marcus Aurelius. Their
+combes, or hollows, are then filled with purple shadow cast by the
+sinking sun, while the summits and shoulders are gold.
+
+[Sidenote: GILBERT WHITE IN SUSSEX]
+
+Gilbert White has an often-quoted passage on these hills:--"Though I
+have now travelled the Sussex downs upwards of thirty years, yet I still
+investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year
+by year, and I think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This
+range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as East Bourn, is
+about sixty miles in length, and is called the South Downs, properly
+speaking, only round Lewes. As you pass along you command a noble view
+of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the broad downs and sea on the
+other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family [Mr. Courthope, of Danny] just at
+the foot of these hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from
+Plumpton Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his _Wisdom
+of God in the Works of the Creation_ with the utmost satisfaction, and
+thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe.
+For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and amusing
+in the shapely-figured aspect of the chalk hills in preference to those
+of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may
+be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same
+idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I
+perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and
+smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular
+hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation
+and expansion:--Or, was there even a time when these immense masses of
+calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious
+moisture, were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic
+power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky, so
+much above the less animated clay of the wild below?"
+
+The Downs have a human and historic as well as scenic interest. On many
+of their highest points are the barrows or graves of our British
+ancestors, who, could they revisit the glimpses of the moon, would find
+little change, for these hills have been less interfered with than any
+district within twice the distance from London. The English dislike of
+climbing has saved them. They will probably be the last stronghold of
+the horse when petrol has ousted him from every other region.
+
+[Sidenote: ROMAN AND SAXON]
+
+After the Briton came the Roman, to whose orderly military mind such a
+chain of hills seemed a series of heaven-sent earthworks. Every point in
+a favourable position was at once fortified by the legionaries. Standing
+upon these ramparts to-day, identical in general configuration in spite
+of the intervening centuries, one may imagine one's self a Caesarian
+soldier and see in fancy the hinds below running for safety.
+
+After the Romans came the Saxons, who did not, however, use the heights
+as their predecessors had. Yet they left even more intimate traces, for,
+as I shall show in a later chapter on Sussex dialect, the language of
+the Sussex labourer is still largely theirs, the farms themselves often
+follow their original Saxon disposition, the field names are unaltered,
+and the character of the people is of the yellow-haired parent stock.
+Sussex, in many respects, is still Saxon. In a poem by Mr. W. G. Hole is
+a stanza which no one that knows Sussex can read without visualising
+instantly a Sussex hill-side farm:--
+
+
+     The Saxon lies, too, in his grave where the plough-lands swell;
+         And he feels with the joy that is Earth's
+         The Spring with its myriad births;
+         And he scents as the evening falls
+         The rich deep breath of the stalls;
+     And he says, "Still the seasons bring increase and joy to the
+              world--It is well!"
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE ESCAPE OF CHARLES II.]
+
+Standing on one of these hills above the Hartings one may remember an
+event in English history of more recent date than any of the periods
+that we have been recalling--the escape of Charles II in 1651. It was
+over these Downs that he passed; and it has been suggested that a
+traveller wishing for a picturesque route across the Downs might do well
+to follow his course.
+
+According to the best accounts Charles was met, on the evening of
+October 13, near Hambledon, in Hampshire (afterwards to be famous as the
+cradle of first-class cricket), by Thomas and George Gunter of Racton,
+with a leash of greyhounds as if for coursing. The King slept at the
+house of Thomas Symonds, Gunter's brother-in-law, in the character of a
+Roundhead. The next morning at daybreak, the King, Lord Wilmot and the
+two Gunters crossed Broad Halfpenny Down (celebrated by Nyren), and
+proceeding by way of Catherington Down, Charlton Down, and Ibsworth
+Down, reached Compting Down in Sussex. At Stanstead House Thomas Gunter
+left the King, and hurried on to Brighton to arrange for the crossing to
+France. The others rode on by way of the hills, with a descent from
+Duncton Beacon, until they reached what promised to be the security of
+Houghton Forest. There they were panic-stricken nearly to meet Captain
+Morley, governor of Arundel Castle, and therefore by no means a King's
+man. The King, on being told who it was, replied merrily, "I did not
+much like his starched mouchates." This peril avoided, they descended to
+Houghton village, where the Arun was crossed, and so to Amberley, where
+in Sir John Briscoe's castle the King slept.[1]
+
+[Sidenote: ROUNDHEADS OUTWITTED]
+
+On Amberley Mount the King's horse cast a shoe, necessitating a drop to
+one of the Burphams, at Lee Farm, to have the mishap put right.
+Ascending the hills again the fugitives held the high track as far as
+Steyning. At Bramber they survived a second meeting with Cromwellians,
+three or four soldiers of Col. Herbert Morley of Glynde suddenly
+appearing, but being satisfied merely to insult them. At Beeding, George
+Gunter rode on by way of the lower road to Brighton, while the King and
+Lord Wilmot climbed the hill at Horton, crossing by way of White Lot to
+Southwick, where, according to one story, in a cottage at the west of
+the Green was a hiding-hole in which the King lay until Captain Nicholas
+Tattersall of Brighton was ready to embark him for Fecamp. George
+Gunter's own story is, however, that the King rode direct to Brighton.
+He reached Fecamp on October 16. Two hours after Gunter left Brighton,
+"soldiers came thither to search for a tall black man, six feet four
+inches high"--to wit, the Merry Monarch.
+
+Such is the bare narrative of Charles' Sussex ride. If the reader would
+have it garnished and spiced he should turn to the pages of Ainsworth's
+_Ovingdean Grange_, where much that never happened is set forth as
+entertainingly (or so I thought when I read it as a boy) as if it were
+truth.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] That is the story as the Amberley people like to have it, but
+another version makes him ride from Hambledon to Brighton in one day; in
+which case he may have avoided Amberley altogether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHICHESTER
+
+     William Collins--The Smiths of Chichester--Hardham's snuff--C. R.
+     Leslie's reminiscence--The headless Ravenswood--Chichester
+     Cathedral--Roman Chichester--Mr. Spershott's recollections--A
+     warning to swearers--The prettiest alms-house in England.
+
+
+I have already quoted some lines by Collins on Otway; it is time to come
+to Collins himself.
+
+
+     When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
+     While yet in early Greece she sung,
+     The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
+     Throng'd around her magic cell--
+
+
+The perfect ode which opens with these unforgettable lines belongs to
+Chichester, for William Collins was born there on Christmas Day, 1721,
+and educated there, at the Prebendal school, until he went to
+Winchester. William Collins was the son of the Mayor of Chichester, a
+hatter, from whom Pope's friend Caryll bought his hats. I have no wish
+to tell here the sad story of Collins' life; it is better to remember
+that few as are his odes they are all of gold. He died at Chichester in
+1759, and was buried in St. Andrew's Church.
+
+
+       With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
+       Pale Melancholy sat retired;
+       And, from her wild sequester'd seat,
+       In notes by distance made more sweet,
+     Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul:
+       And, dashing soft from rocks around
+       Bubbling runnels join'd the sound;
+     Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
+       Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
+         Round an holy calm diffusing,
+         Love of peace, and lonely musing,
+      In hollow murmurs died away.
+
+
+[Sidenote: GEORGE SMITH'S ECLOGUE]
+
+Collins is Chichester's great poet. She had a very agreeable minor poet,
+too, in George Smith, one of the Three Smiths--all artists: William,
+born in 1707, painter of portraits and of fruit and flower pieces, and
+George and John, born in 1713 and 1717, who painted landscapes,--known
+collectively as the Smiths of Chichester. I mention them rather on
+account of George Smith's poetical experiments than for the brothers'
+fame as artists; but there is such a pleasant flavour in one at least of
+his _Pastorals_ that I have copied a portion of it. It is called "The
+Country Lovers; or, Isaac and Marget going to Town on a Summer's
+Morning." The town is probably Chichester--certainly one in Sussex and
+near the Downs. Isaac speaks first:--
+
+
+     Come! Marget, come!--the team is at the gate!
+     Not ready yet!--you always make me wait!
+
+
+I omit a certain amount of the dialogue which follows, but at last
+Marget exclaims:--
+
+
+     Well, now I'm ready, long I have not staid.
+
+     ISAAC.
+
+     One kiss before we go, my pretty maid.
+
+     MARGET.
+
+     Go! don't be foolish, Isaac--get away!
+     Who loiters now?--I thought I could not stay!
+     There!--that's enough! why, Isaac, sure you're mad!
+
+     ISAAC.
+
+     One more, my dearest girl--
+
+     MARGET.
+
+     Be quiet, lad.
+     See both my cap and hair are rumpled o'er!
+     The tying of my beads is got before!
+
+     ISAAC.
+
+     There let it stay, thy brighter blush to show,
+     Which shames the cherry-colour'd silken bow.
+     Thy lips, which seem the scarlet's hue to steal,
+     Are sweeter than the candy'd lemon peel.
+
+     MARGET.
+
+     Pray take these chickens for me to the cart;
+     Dear little creatures, how it grieves my heart
+     To see them ty'd, that never knew a crime,
+     And formed so fine a flock at feeding time!
+
+
+The pretty poem ends with fervid protestations of devotion from Isaac:--
+
+
+     For thee the press with apple-juice shall foam!
+     For thee the bees shall quit their honey-comb!
+     For thee the elder's purple fruit shall grow!
+     For thee the pails with cream shall overflow!
+
+        But see yon teams returning from the town,
+     Wind in the chalky wheel-ruts o'er the down:
+     We now must haste; for if we longer stay,
+     They'll meet us ere we leave the narrow way.
+
+
+Another of Chichester's illustrious sons is Archbishop Juxon, who stood
+by the side of Charles I. on the scaffold and bade farewell to him in
+the words "You are exchanging from a temporal to an eternal crown--a
+good exchange."
+
+[Sidenote: HARDHAM'S SNUFF]
+
+Yet another, of a very different type, is John Hardham. "When they
+talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff," wrote Goldsmith of Sir
+Joshua Reynolds,
+
+
+     He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
+
+
+Had it not been for Chichester the great painter might never have had
+the second of these consolations, for the only snuff he liked was
+Hardham's No. 37, and Hardham was a native of Chichester. Before he
+became famous as a tobacconist, Hardham was, by night, a numberer of the
+pit for Garrick at Drury Lane. One day he happened to blend Dutch and
+rappee and poured the mixture into a drawer labelled 37. Garrick so
+liked the pinch of it which he chanced upon, that he introduced a
+reference to its merits in some of his comic parts, with the result that
+Hardham's little shop in Fleet Street soon became a resort, and no nose
+was properly furnished without No. 37. As Colton wrote, in his
+_Hypocrisy_:--
+
+
+     A name is all. From Garrick's breath a puff
+     Of praise gave immortality to snuff;
+     Since which each connoisseur a transient heaven
+     Finds in each pinch of Hardham's 37.
+
+
+The wealth that came to the tobacconist he left to the city of
+Chichester to relieve it of certain of its poor rates; and the citizens
+still magnify Hardham's name. He died in 1772 and had the good sense to
+restrict the expense of his funeral to ten pounds.
+
+[Sidenote: WILKIE'S BUMPS]
+
+Chichester was the scene of a pleasant incident recorded by Leslie in
+his _Autobiographical Recollections_. He was staying with Wilkie at
+Petworth, the guest of their patron, and the patron of so many other
+painters, Lord Egremont, of whom we shall learn more when Petworth is
+reached. They all drove over to Chichester after a visit to Goodwood.
+Lord Egremont, says Leslie, "had some business to transact at
+Chichester; but one of his objects was to show us a young girl, the
+daughter of an upholsterer, who was devoted to painting, and considered
+to be a genius by her friends. She was not at home; but her mother said
+she could soon be found, 'if his lordship would have the goodness to
+wait a short time.' The young lady soon appeared, breathless and
+exhausted with running. Lord Egremont mentioned our names, and she said,
+looking up to Wilkie with an expression of great respect, 'Oh, sir! it
+was but yesterday I had your head in my hands.' This puzzled him, as he
+did not know she was a phrenologist.
+
+"'And what bumps did you find?' said Lord Egremont.
+
+"'The organ of veneration, very large,' was her answer; and Wilkie,
+making her a profound bow, said:
+
+"'Madam, I have a great veneration for genius.'
+
+"She showed us an unfinished picture from _The Bride of Lammermoor_. The
+figure of Lucy Ashton was completed, and, she told us, was the portrait
+of a young friend of hers; but Ravenswood was without a head, and this
+she explained by saying, 'there are no handsome men in Chichester. But,'
+she continued, her countenance brightening, 'the Tenth are expected here
+soon.'" (The Tenth was noted for its handsome officers.)
+
+Leslie does not carry the story farther. Whether poor Ravenswood ever
+gained his head; whether if he did so it was a military one, or, as a
+last resource, a Chichester one; and where the picture, if completed,
+now is, I do not know, nor have I succeeded in discovering any more of
+the young lady. But passing through the streets of the town I was
+conscious of the absence of the Tenth.
+
+Chichester is a perfect example of an English rural capital, thronged on
+market days with tilt carts, each bringing a farmer or farmer's wife,
+and rich in those well-stored ironmongers' shops that one never sees
+elsewhere. But it is more than this: it is also a cathedral town, with
+the ever present sense of domination by the cloth even when the cloth is
+not visible. Chichester has its roughs and its public houses (Mr. Hudson
+in his _Nature in Downland_ gives them a caustic chapter); it also has
+its race-week every July, and barracks within hail; yet it is always a
+cathedral town. Whatever noise may be in the air you know in your heart
+that quietude is its true characteristic. One might say that above the
+loudest street cries you are continually conscious of the silence of the
+close.
+
+[Illustration: _Chichester Cathedral._]
+
+[Sidenote: CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL]
+
+Chichester's cathedral is not among the most beautiful or the most
+interesting, but there is none cooler. It dates from the eleventh
+century and contains specimens of almost every kind of church
+architecture; but the spire is comparatively new, having been built in
+1866 to take the place of its predecessor, which suddenly dropped like
+an extinguisher five years before. Seen from the Channel it rises, a
+friendly landmark (white or gray, according to the clouds), and while
+walking on the Downs above or on the plain around, one is frequently
+pleased to catch an unexpected glimpse of its tapering beauty. I have
+heard it said that Chichester is the only English cathedral that is
+visible at sea.
+
+Within, the cathedral is disappointing, offering one neither richness on
+the one hand nor the charm of pure severity on the other. A cathedral
+must either be plain or coloured, and Chichester comes short of both
+ideals; it has no colour and no purity. Its proportions are, however,
+exquisite, and it is impossible to remain here long without passing
+under the spell of the stone. Yet had it, one feels, only radiance, how
+much finer it would be.
+
+For the completest contrast to the vastness of the cathedral one may
+cross into North Street and enter the portal of the toy church of St.
+Olave, which dates from the 14th century, and is remarkable, not only
+for its minuteness, but as being one of the churches of Chichester
+which, in my experience, is not normally locked and barred.
+
+[Sidenote: ROMAN CHICHESTER]
+
+That Chichester was built by the Romans in the geometrical Roman way you
+may see as you look down from the Bell Tower upon its four main
+streets--north, south, east and west--east becoming Stane-street and
+running direct to London. Chichester then was Regnum. On the departure
+of the Romans, Cissa, son of Ella, took possession, and the name was
+changed to Cissa's Ceastre, hence Chichester. Remnants of the old walls
+still stand; and a path has been made on the portion running from North
+Street down to West Gate.
+
+[Sidenote: A CLERICAL STRONGHOLD]
+
+More attractive, because more human, than the cathedral itself are its
+precincts: the long resounding cloisters, the still, discreet lanes
+populous with clerics, and most of all that little terrace of
+ecclesiastical residences parallel with South Street, in the shadow of
+the mighty fane, covered with creeping greenness, from wistaria to
+ampelopsis, with minute windows, inviolable front doors and trim front
+gardens, which (like all similar settlements) remind one of alms-houses
+carried out to the highest power. Surely the best of places in which to
+edit Horace afresh or find new meanings in St. Augustine.
+
+[Illustration: _Chichester Cross._]
+
+There is a tendency for the cathedral to absorb all the attention of the
+traveller, but Chichester has other beauties, including the Market
+Cross, which is a mere child of stone, dating only from the reign of
+Henry VIII.; St. Mary's Hospital in North Street; and the remains of the
+monastery of the Grey Friars in the Priory Park. Young Chichester now
+plays cricket where of old the monks caught fish and performed their
+duties. It was probably on the mound that their Calvary stood; the last
+time I climbed it was to watch Bonnor, the Australian giant, practising
+in the nets below, too many years ago.
+
+Like all cathedral towns Chichester has beautiful gardens, as one may
+see from the campanile. There are no lawns like the lawns of Bishops,
+Deans, and Colleges; and few flower beds more luxuriantly stocked.
+Chichester also has a number of grave, solid houses, such as Miss
+Austen's characters might have lived in; at least one superb specimen of
+the art of Sir Christopher Wren, a masterpiece of substantial red brick;
+and a noble inn, the Dolphin, where one dines in the Assembly room, a
+relic of the good times before inns became hotels.
+
+[Sidenote: SPERSHOTT'S RECOLLECTIONS]
+
+We have some glimpses of old Chichester in the reminiscences (about
+1720-1730) of James Spershott, a Chichester Baptist Elder, who died in
+1789, aged eighty. I quote a passage here and there from his paper of
+recollections printed in the Sussex Archaeological Collections:--
+
+"Spinning of Household Linnen was in use in most Families, also making
+their own Bread, and likewise their own Household Physick. No Tea, but
+much Industrey and good Cheer. The Bacon racks were loaded with Bacon,
+for little Porke was made in these times. The farmers' Wifes and
+Daughters were plain in Dress, and made no such gay figures in our
+Market as nowadays. At Christmas, the whole Constellation of Pattypans
+which adorn'd their Chimney fronts were taken down. The Spit, the Pot,
+the Oven, were all in use together; the Evenings spent in Jollity, and
+their Glass Guns smoking Top'd the Tumbler with the froth of Good
+October, till most of them were slain or wounded, and the Prince of
+Orange, and Queen Ann's Marlborough, could no longer be resounded...."
+
+[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF A SWEARER]
+
+Here is Mr. Spershott's account of a Chichester calamity:--"Jno. Page,
+Esq., native of this city, coming from London to Stand Candidate Here, a
+great number of voters went on Horseback to meet him. Among the rest Mr.
+Joshua Lover, a noted School Master, a sober man in the general but of
+flighty Passions. As he was setting out, one of his Scollers, Patty
+Smith (afterwards my Spouse) asked him for a Coppy, and in haste he
+wrote the following:--
+
+
+     Extreames beget Extreames, Extreames avoid
+     Extreames without Extreames are not Enjoyed.
+
+
+"He set off in High Carrier, and turning down Rooks's Hill before the
+Sqr., rideing like a madman To and fro, forward and backward Hallooing
+among the Company, the Horse at full speed fell with him and kill'd him.
+A Caution to the flighty and unsteady; and a verification of his Coppy."
+Again: "Robt. Madlock, a most Prophane Swarer, being Employ'd in
+Cleaning the outside of the Steeple," fell, owing to a breaking rope,
+and soon after died. Mr. Spershott adds: "A warning to Swarers." Another
+entry states: "In my younger years there were many very large corpulent
+Persons in the City, both of Men and Women. I could now recite by name
+between twenty and thirty, the great part of that number so Prodigious
+that like other animals Thoroughly fatted, they could hardly move
+about."
+
+One of Chichester's epitaphs runs thus:--
+
+
+     Here lies a true soldier, whom all must applaud;
+     Much hardship he suffer'd at home and abroad;
+     But the hardest engagement he ever was in,
+     Was the battle of Self in the conquest of Sin.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE PERFECT ALMSHOUSE]
+
+I have left until the last the prettiest thing in this city of comely
+streets and houses--St. Mary's Hospital, at the end of Lion Street (out
+of North Street): the quaintest almshouse in the world. The building
+stands back, behind the ordinary houses, and is gained by a passage and
+a courtyard. You then enter what seems to be a church, for at the far
+end is an altar beneath an unmistakably ecclesiastical window. But when
+the first feeling of surprise has passed, you discover that there is
+only a small chancel at the east end of the building, on either side of
+which are little dwellings. Each of these is occupied by a nice little
+old woman, who has two rooms, very minute and cosy, with a little supply
+of faggots close at hand, and all the dignity of a householder, although
+the occupant only of an infinitesimal toy house within a house. How do
+they agree, one wonders, these little old ladies of a touchy age under
+their great roof?
+
+Different accounts are given of the origin of St. Mary's Hospital. Mr.
+Lower says that it was founded in 1229 for a chaplain and thirteen
+bedesmen. In 1562 a warden and five inmates were the prescribed
+occupants. Now there are eight sets of rooms, each with its demure
+tenant, all of whom troop into the little chapel at fixed hours. Mrs.
+Evans, sacristan, who does the honours, would tell me nothing as to the
+process of selection by which she and the seven other occupants came to
+be living there; all that she could say was that she was very happy to
+be a Hospitaller, and that by no possibility could one of the little
+domiciles ever fall to me.
+
+[Illustration: _The Ruined Nave of Boxgrove._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHICHESTER AND THE HILLS.
+
+     Goodwood--The art of being a park--The Cenotaph of Lord
+     Darnley--Boxgrove--Cowper at Eastham--The Charlton Hunt--A famous
+     run--Huntsman and Saint--Present day hunting in Sussex--Mr. Knox's
+     delectable day with his gun--Kingly Bottom--The best white
+     violets--A demon bowler--Two epitaphs.
+
+
+Chichester may have a cathedral and a history, but nine out of ten
+strangers know of it only as a station for Goodwood race-course; towards
+which, in that hot week at the end of July, hundreds of carriages toil
+by the steep road that skirts the Duke of Richmond and Gordon's park.
+
+Goodwood Park gives me little pleasure. I miss the deer; and when the
+first park that one ever knew was Buxted, with its moving antlers above
+the brake fern, one almost is compelled to withhold the word park from
+any enclosure without them. It is impossible to lose the feeling that
+the right place for cattle--even for Alderneys--is the meadow. Cows in a
+park are a poor makeshift; parks are for deer. To my eyes Goodwood
+House has a chilling exterior; the road to the hill-top is steep and
+lengthy; and when one has climbed it and crossed the summit wood, it is
+to come upon the last thing that one wishes to find in the heart of the
+country, among rolling Downs, sacred to hawks and solitude--a Grand
+Stand and the railings of a race-course! Race-courses are for the
+outskirts of towns, as at Brighton and Lewes; or for hills that have no
+mystery and no magic, like the heights of Epsom; or for such mockeries
+of parks as Sandown and Kempton. The good park has many deer and no
+race-course.
+
+And yet Goodwood is superb, for it has some of the finest trees in
+Sussex within its walls, including the survivors of a thousand cedars of
+Lebanon planted a hundred and fifty years ago; and with every step
+higher one unfolds a wider view of the Channel and the plain. Best of
+these prospects is, perhaps, that gained from Carne's seat, as the
+Belvedere to the left of the road to the racecourse is called; its name
+deriving from an old servant of the family, whose wooden hut was
+situated here when Carne died, and whose name and fame were thus
+perpetuated. The stones of the building were in part those of old Hove
+church, near Brighton, then lately demolished.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CENOTAPH OF DARNLEY]
+
+In Goodwood House, which is shown on regular days, are fine Vandycks and
+Lelys, relics of the two Charles', and above all the fascinatingly
+absorbing "Cenotaph of Lord Darnley," a series of scenes in the life of
+that ill-fated husband. It may be said that among all the treasures of
+Sussex there is nothing quite so interesting as this.
+
+[Illustration: _Boxgrove Priory Church._]
+
+[Sidenote: BOXGROVE]
+
+Leaving Chichester by East Street (or Stane Street, the old Roman road
+to London) one comes first to West Hampnett, famous as the birthplace,
+in 1792, of Frederick William Lillywhite, the "Nonpareil" bowler, whom
+we shall meet again at Brighton. A mile and a half beyond is Halnaker,
+midway between two ruins, those of Halnaker House to the north and
+Boxgrove Priory to the south. Of the remains of Halnaker House, a Tudor
+mansion, once the home of the De la Warrs, little may now be seen; but
+Boxgrove is still very beautiful, as Mr. Griggs' drawings prove. The
+Priory dates from the reign of Henry I., when it was founded very
+modestly for three Benedictine monks, a number which steadily grew.
+Seven Henries later came its downfall, and now nothing remains but some
+exquisite Norman arches and a few less perfect fragments. Boxgrove
+church is an object of pilgrimage for antiquaries and architects, the
+vaulting being peculiarly interesting. At the Halnaker Arms in 1902 was
+a landlady whom few cooks could teach anything in the matter of pastry.
+
+[Sidenote: THE EARTHAM DILLETANTE]
+
+The next village on Stane Street, or rather a little south of it, about
+two miles beyond Halnaker, is Eartham; which brings to mind William
+Hayley, the friend and biographer of Cowper and the author of _The
+Triumphs of Temper_, perhaps the least read of any book that once was
+popular. Hayley succeeded his father as squire of Eartham; here he
+entertained Cowper and other friends; here Romney painted. When need
+came for retrenchment, Hayley let Eartham to Huskisson, the statesman,
+and moved to Felpham, on the coast, where we shall meet with him again.
+Cowper's occupations upon this charming Sussex hillside are recorded in
+Hayley's account of the visit: "_Homer_ was not the immediate object of
+our attention while Cowper resided at Eartham. The morning hours that we
+could bestow on books were chiefly devoted to a complete revisal and
+correction of all the translations, which my friend had finished, from
+the Latin and Italian poetry of Milton; and we generally amused
+ourselves after dinner in forming together a rapid metrical version of
+Andreini's _Adamo_. But the constant care which the delicate health of
+Mrs. Unwin required rendered it impossible for us to be very assiduous
+in study, and perhaps the best of all studies was to promote and share
+that most singular and most exemplary tenderness of attention with which
+Cowper incessantly laboured to counteract every infirmity, bodily and
+mental, with which sickness and age had conspired to load this
+interesting guardian of his afflicted life.... The air of the south
+infused a little portion of fresh strength into her shattered frame, and
+to give it all possible efficacy, the boy, whom I have mentioned, and a
+young associate and fellow student of his, employed themselves regularly
+twice a day in drawing this venerable cripple in a commodious
+garden-chair round the airy hill of Eartham. To Cowper and to me it was
+a very pleasing spectacle to see the benevolent vivacity of blooming
+youth thus continually labouring for the ease, health, and amusement of
+disabled age."
+
+[Sidenote: COWPER IN SUSSEX]
+
+The poet and Mrs. Unwin, after much trepidation and doubt, had left
+Weston Underwood on August 1, 1792; they slept at Barnet the first
+night, Ripley the next, and were at Eartham by ten o'clock on the third.
+They stayed till September. Cowper describes Hayley's estate as one of
+the most delightful pleasure grounds in the world. "I had no conception
+that a poet could be the owner of such a paradise, and his house is as
+elegant as his scenes are charming." The poet, apart from his rapid
+treatment of _Adamo_, did not succeed independently in attaining to
+Hayley's fluency among these surroundings. "I am in truth so
+unaccountably local in the use of my pen," he wrote to Lady Hesketh,
+"that, like the man in the fable, who could leap well nowhere but at
+Rhodes, I seem incapable of writing at all except at Weston." Hence the
+only piece that he composed in our county was the epitaph on Fop, a dog
+belonging to Lady Throckmorton. But while he was at Eartham Romney drew
+his portrait in crayons.
+
+[Illustration: _Boxgrove from the South._]
+
+Cowper always looked back upon his visit with pleasure, but, as he
+remarked, the genius of Weston Underwood suited him better--"It has an
+air of snug concealment in which a disposition like mine feels itself
+peculiarly gratified; whereas now I see from every window woods like
+forests and hills like mountains--a wilderness, in short, that rather
+increases my natural melancholy.... Accordingly, I have not looked out
+for a house in Sussex, nor shall."
+
+The simplest road from Chichester to the Downs is the railway. The
+little train climbs laboriously to Singleton, and then descends to
+Cocking and Midhurst. By leaving it at Singleton one is quickly in the
+heart of this vast district of wooded hills, sometimes wholly forested,
+sometimes, as in West Dean park, curiously studded with circular clumps
+of trees.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CHARLTON HUNT]
+
+The most interesting spot to the east of the line is Charlton, once so
+famous among sporting men, but now, alas, unknown. For Charlton was of
+old a southern Melton Mowbray, the very centre of the aristocratic
+hunting county. The Charlton Hunt had two palmy periods: before the Duke
+of Monmouth's rebellion, and after the accession of William III.
+Monmouth and Lord Grey kept two packs, the Master being Squire Roper.
+With the fall of Monmouth Roper fled to France, to hunt at Chantilly,
+but on the accession of William III. he returned to Sussex, the hounds
+resumed their old condition, and the Charlton pack became the most
+famous in the world. On the death of Mr. Roper--in the hunting field, in
+1715, at the age of eighty-four--the Duke of Bolton took the Mastership,
+which he held until the charms of Miss Fenton the actress (the Polly
+Peachum of _The Beggars' Opera_) lured him to the tents of the women.
+Then came the glorious reign of the second Duke of Richmond, when sport
+with the Charlton was at its height. The Charlton Hunt declined upon his
+death, in 1750, became known as the Goodwood Hunt, and wholly ceased to
+be at the beginning of the last century.
+
+The crowning glory of the Charlton Hunt was the run of Friday, January
+26, 1738, which is thus described in an old manuscript:--
+
+[Sidenote: A FAMOUS RUN]
+
+
+     A FULL AND IMPARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THE REMARKABLE CHASE AT CHARLTON,
+     ON FRIDAY, 26TH JANUARY, 1738.
+
+     It has long been a matter of controversy in the hunting world to
+     what particular country or set of men the superiority belonged.
+     Prejudices and partiality have the greatest share in their
+     disputes, and every society their proper champion to assert the
+     pre-eminence and bring home the trophy to their own country. Even
+     Richmond Park has the Dymoke. But on Friday, the 26th of January,
+     1738, there was a decisive engagement on the plains of Sussex,
+     which, after ten hours' struggle, has settled all further debate
+     and given the brush to the gentlemen of Charlton.
+
+     PRESENT IN THE MORNING:--
+
+     The Duke of Richmond, Duchess of Richmond, Duke of St Alban's, the
+     Lord Viscount Harcourt, the Lord Henry Beauclerk, the Lord
+     Ossulstone, Sir Harry Liddell, Brigadier Henry Hawley, Ralph
+     Jennison, master of His Majesty's Buck Hounds, Edward Pauncefort,
+     Esq., William Farquhar, Esq., Cornet Philip Honywood, Richard
+     Biddulph, Esq., Charles Biddulph, Esq., Mr. St. Paul, Mr. Johnson,
+     Mr. Peerman, of Chichester; Mr. Thomson, Tom Johnson, Billy Ives,
+     Yeoman Pricker to His Majesty's Hounds; David Briggs and Nim Ives,
+     Whippers-in.
+
+     At a quarter before eight in the morning the fox was found in
+     Eastdean Wood, and ran an hour in that cover; then into the Forest,
+     up to Puntice Coppice through Heringdean to the Marlows, up to
+     Coney Coppice, back to the Marlows, to the Forest West Gate, over
+     the fields to Nightingale Bottom, to Cobden's at Draught, up his
+     Pine Pit Hanger, where His Grace of St. Alban's got a fall; through
+     My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, and missed the earth; through Westdean
+     Forest to the corner of Collar Down (where Lord Harcourt blew his
+     first horse), crossed the Hackney-place down the length of Coney
+     Coppice, through the Marlows to Heringdean, into the Forest and
+     Puntice Coppice, Eastdean Wood, through the Lower Teglease across
+     by Cocking Course down between Graffham and Woolavington, through
+     Mr. Orme's Park and Paddock over the Heath to Fielder's Furzes, to
+     the Harlands, Selham, Ambersham, through Todham Furzes, over Todham
+     Heath, almost to Cowdray Park, there turned to the limekiln at the
+     end of Cocking Causeway, through Cocking Park and Furzes; there
+     crossed the road and up the hills between Bepton and Cocking. Here
+     the unfortunate Lord Harcourt's second horse felt the effects of
+     long legs and a sudden steep; the best thing that belonged to him
+     was his saddle, which My Lord had secured; but, by bleeding and
+     Geneva (contrary to Act of Parliament) he recovered, and with some
+     difficulty was got home. Here Mr. Farquhar's humanity claims your
+     regard, who kindly sympathised with My Lord in his misfortunes, and
+     had not power to go beyond him. At the bottom of Cocking Warren
+     the hounds turned to the left across the road by the barn near
+     Heringdean, then took the side near to the north-gate of the Forest
+     (Here General Hawley thought it prudent to change his horse for a
+     true-blue that staid up the hills). Billy Ives likewise took a
+     horse of Sir Harry Liddell's, went quite through the Forest and run
+     the foil through Nightingale Bottom to Cobden at Draught, up his
+     Pine Pit Hanger to My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, through every mews
+     she went in the morning; went through the Warren above Westdean
+     (where we dropt Sir Harry Liddell) down to Benderton Farm (here
+     Lord Harry sank), through Goodwood Park (here the Duke of Richmond
+     chose to send three lame horses back to Charlton, and took Saucy
+     Face and Sir William, that were luckily at Goodwood; from thence,
+     at a distance, Lord Harry was seen driving his horse before him to
+     Charlton). The hounds went out at the upper end of the Park over
+     Strettington-road by Sealy Coppice (where His Grace of Richmond got
+     a summerset), through Halnaker Park over Halnaker Hill to Seabeach
+     Farm (here the Master of the Stag Hounds, Cornet Honywood, Tom
+     Johnson, and Nim Ives were thoroughly satisfied), up Long Down,
+     through Eartham Common fields and Kemp's High Wood (here Billy Ives
+     tried his second horse and took Sir William, by which the Duke of
+     St. Alban's had no great coat, so returned to Charlton). From
+     Kemp's High Wood the hounds took away through Gunworth Warren,
+     Kemp's Rough Piece, over Slindon Down to Madehurst Parsonage (where
+     Billy came in with them), over Poor Down up to Madehurst, then down
+     to Houghton Forest, where His Grace of Richmond, General Hawley,
+     and Mr. Pauncefort came in (the latter to little purpose, for,
+     beyond the Ruel Hill, neither Mr. Pauncefort nor his horse Tinker
+     cared to go, so wisely returned to his impatient friends), up the
+     Ruel Hill, left Sherwood on the right hand, crossed Ofham Hill to
+     Southwood, from thence to South Stoke to the wall of Arundel River,
+     where the glorious 23 hounds put an end to the campaign, and killed
+     an old bitch fox, ten minutes before six. Billy Ives, His Grace of
+     Richmond, and General Hawley were the only persons in at the death,
+     to the immortal honour of 17 stone, and at least as many campaigns.
+
+
+[Sidenote: JOHNSON THE EXEMPLAR]
+
+In Singleton church is a record of the Charlton Hunt in the shape of a
+memorial to one of the huntsmen, the moral of which seems to be that we
+must all be huntsmen too:--
+
+
+       "Near this place lies interred
+              THOMAS JOHNSON,
+     who departed this life at Charlton,
+            December 20th, 1774.
+
+
+"From his early inclination to fox-hounds, he soon became an experienced
+huntsman. His knowledge in the profession, wherein he had no superior,
+and hardly an equal, joined to his honesty in every other particular,
+recommended him to the service, and gained him the approbation, of
+several of the nobility and gentry. Among these were the Lord CONWAY,
+Earl of CARDIGAN, the Lord GOWER, the Duke of MARLBOROUGH, the Hon. M.
+SPENCER. The last master whom he served, and in whose service he died,
+was CHARLES, Duke of RICHMOND, LENNOX, and AUBIGNY, who erected this
+monument in memory of a good and faithful servant, as a reward to the
+deceased, and an incitement to the living.
+
+'Go, and do thou likewise.' (St. Luke, x. 37).
+
+
+     'Here Johnson lies; what human can deny
+     Old Honest Tom the tribute of a sigh?
+     Deaf is that ear which caught the opening sound;
+     Dumb that tongue which cheer'd the hills around.
+     Unpleasing truth: Death hunts us from our birth
+     In view, and men, like foxes, take to earth.'"
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE SUSSEX PACKS]
+
+A few words on the packs of Sussex at the present time may be
+interesting in this connection. Chief is the Southdown Fox Hounds, a
+very fine, fast pack brought to a high state of perfection by the late
+master, the Hon. Charles Brand. They hunt the open and hill country
+between the Adur and Cuckmere, between Haywards Heath and the sea. In
+the north are the Crawley and Horsham Fox Hounds, which have large
+woodlands, high hedges, and some stiff ploughed soil to their less easy
+lot. The hounds are bigger and heavier than the South Downers. Smaller
+packs are Lord Leconfield's Fox Hounds, which have the Charlton country;
+the Eastbourne Fox Hounds, to which the East Sussex Fox Hounds allotted
+a share of the western part of their country east of the Cuckmere; and
+the Burstow and Eridge packs. Of Harriers, the best are the Brighton
+Harriers, so long hunted by Mr. Hugh Gorringe of Kingston-by-Sea, a very
+smart pack lately covering the ground between the Adur and Falmer, and
+now adding the Brookside Harriers' country to their own domain, the two
+packs having been amalgamated. In the east are the Bexhill Harriers and
+the Hailsham Harriers; and in the west the South Coast Harriers, for the
+Chichester country. Sussex, in addition to possessing the Warnham
+Staghounds, is much raided by the Surrey Staghounds. The Crowhurst Otter
+Hounds also visit the Sussex streams now and then. Foot Beagles may be
+numerous but I know only of the Brighton pack.
+
+[Sidenote: MR. KNOX'S SETTER]
+
+And here let me give Mr. Knox's description of a day's shooting, in the
+gentlemanly way, on the Sussex Downs, following, in his _Ornithological
+Rambles_, upon some remarks on the battue. "How different is the pursuit
+of the pheasant with the aid of spaniels in the thick covers of the
+weald, or tracking him with a single setter among some of the wilder
+portions of the forest range!--intently observing your dog and
+anticipating the wily artifices of some old cock, with spurs as long as
+a dragon's, who will sometimes lead you for a mile through bog, brake,
+fern, and heather, before the sudden drop of your staunch companion, and
+a rigidity in all his limbs, satisfy you that you have at last compelled
+the bird to squat under that wide holly-bush, from whence you kick him
+up, and feel some little exultation as you bring him down with a
+snap-shot, having only caught a glimpse of him through the evergreen
+boughs, as he endeavoured to escape by a rapid flight at the opposite
+side of the tree.
+
+[Sidenote: A SUSSEX BAG]
+
+"And then the woodcock-shooting in November--I must take you back once
+more to my favourite Downs. With the first full moon during that month,
+especially if the wind be easterly or the weather calm, arrive flights
+of woodcocks, which drop in the covers, and are dispersed among the
+bushy valleys, and even over the heathery summits of the hills. If it
+should happen to be a propitious year for beech-mast--the great
+attraction to pheasants on the Downs, as is the acorn in the weald--you
+may procure partridges, pheasants, hares, and rabbits in perhaps equal
+proportions, with half a dozen woodcocks to crown the bag.
+
+[Illustration: _East Lavant._]
+
+"The extensive, undulating commons and heaths dotted with broken patches
+of Scotch firs and hollies on the ferruginous sand north of the Downs,
+afford--where the manorial rights are enforced--still greater variety of
+sport. On this wild ground, accompanied by my spaniels and an old
+retriever, and attended only by one man, to carry the game, I have
+enjoyed as good sport as mortal need desire on this side of the Tweed.
+Here is a rough sketch of a morning's work.
+
+[Sidenote: PARTRIDGE AND WOODCOCK]
+
+"Commencing operations by walking across a turnip-field, two or three
+coveys spring wildly from the farther end, and fly, as I expect, to the
+adjoining common, where they are marked down on a brow thickly clothed
+with furze. Marching towards them with spaniels at heel, up jumps a hare
+under my nose, then another, then a rabbit. I reload rapidly, and on
+reaching the gorse 'put in' the dogs. Whirr! there goes a partridge! The
+spaniels drop to the report of my gun, but the fluttering wings of the
+dying bird rouse two of his neighbours before I am ready, and away they
+fly, screaming loudly. The remainder are flushed in detail and I succeed
+in securing the greater part of them. Now for the next covey. They were
+marked down in that little hollow where the heather is longer than
+usual--a beautiful spot! But before I reach it, up they all spring in an
+unexpected quarter; that cunning old patriarch at their head had
+cleverly called them together to a naked part of the hill from whence he
+could observe my manoeuvres, and a random shot sent after him with
+hearty good will proved totally ineffective.
+
+"Now the spaniels are worming through the thick sedges on either side of
+the brook which intersects the moor, and by their bustling anxiety it is
+easy to see that game is afoot. Keeping well in front of them, I am just
+in time for a satisfactory right and left at two cock pheasants, which
+they had hunted down to the very edge of the water before they could
+persuade them to take wing. Now for that little alder coppice at the
+further end of the marshy swamp. Hark to that whipping sound so
+different from the rush of the rising pheasant or the drumming flight of
+the partridge! I cannot see the bird, but I know it is a woodcock. This
+must be one of his favourite haunts, for I perceive the tracks of his
+feet and the perforations of his bill in every direction on the black
+mud around. Mark! again. A second is sprung, and as he flits between the
+naked alders a snap-shot stops his career. I now emerge at the farther
+end, just where the trees are thinner than elsewhere. A wisp of snipes
+utter their well-known cry and scud over the heath; one of these is
+secured. The rest fly towards a little pool of dark water lying at a
+considerable distance from the common, a well-known rendezvous for
+those birds. Cautiously approaching, down wind, I reach the margin. Up
+springs a snipe; but just as my finger is on the trigger, and when too
+late to alter my intention, a duck and mallard rise from among the
+rushes and wheel round my head. One barrel is fortunately left, and the
+drake comes tumbling to the ground. Three or four pheasants, another
+couple of woodcocks, a few more snipes, a teal or two, and half a dozen
+rabbits picked up at various intervals, complete the day's sport, and I
+return home, better pleased with myself and my dogs than if we had
+compassed the destruction of all the hares in the county, or assisted at
+the immolation of a perfect hecatomb of pheasants."
+
+[Sidenote: KINGLY BOTTOM]
+
+Kingly Bottom is the most interesting spot to the west of Singleton. One
+may reach it either through Chilgrove, or by walking back towards
+Chichester as far as Binderton House, turning then to the right and
+walking due west for a couple of miles. Report says that the yews in
+Kingly Bottom, or Kingly Vale, mark a victory of Chichester men over a
+party of marauding Danes in 900, and that the dead were buried beneath
+the barrows on the hill. The story ought to be true. The vale is
+remarkable for its grove of yews, some of enormous girth, which extends
+along the bottom to the foot of the escarpment. The charge that might be
+brought against Sussex, that it lacks sombre scenery and the elements of
+dark romance, that its character is too open and transparent, would be
+urged to no purpose in Kingly Vale, which, always grave and silent, is
+transformed at dusk into a sinister and fantastic forest, a home for
+witchcraft and unquiet spirits.
+
+So it seems to me; but among the verses of Bernard Barton, the Quaker
+poet and the friend of Charles Lamb, I lately chanced upon a sonnet
+"written on hearing it remarked that the scenery [of Kingly Bottom] was
+too gloomy to be termed beautiful; and that it was also associated with
+dolorous recollections of Druidical sacrifices." In this poem Barton
+takes a surprisingly novel line. "Nay, nay, it is not gloomy" he begins,
+and the end is thus:--
+
+
+     Nor fancy Druid rites have left a stain
+       Upon its gentle beauties:--loiter there
+       In a calm summer night, confess how fair
+     Its moonlight charms, and thou wilt learn how vain
+     And transitory Superstition's reign
+       Over a spot which gladsome thoughts may share.
+
+
+The ordinary person, not a poet, would, I fear, prefer to think of
+Kingly Bottom's Druidical past.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MARDEN VIOLETS]
+
+The last time I was in Kingly Bottom--it was in April--after leaving the
+barrows on the summit of the Bow Hill, above the Vale, I walked by
+devious ways to East Marden, between banks thick with the whitest and
+sweetest of sweet white violets. East Marden, however, has no inn and is
+therefore not the best friend of the traveller; but it has the most
+modest and least ecclesiastical-looking church in the world, and by
+seeking it out I learned two secrets: the finest place for white violets
+and the finest place to keep a horse. There is no riding country to
+excel this hill district between Singleton and the Hampshire border.
+
+At the neighbouring village of Stoughton, whither I meant to walk (since
+an inn is there) was born, in 1783, the terrible George Brown--Brown of
+Brighton--the fast bowler, whose arm was as thick as an ordinary man's
+thigh. He had two long stops, one of whom padded his chest with straw. A
+long stop once held his coat before one of Brown's balls, but the ball
+went through it and killed a dog on the other side. Brown could throw a
+4-1/2 oz. ball 137 yards, and he was the father of seventeen children.
+He died at Sompting in 1857.
+
+[Sidenote: CHURCHYARD POETRY]
+
+Of Racton, on the Hampshire border, and its association with Charles
+II., I have already spoken. Below, it is Westbourne, a small border
+village in whose churchyard are two pleasing epitaphs. Of Jane, wife of
+Thomas Curtis, who died in 1719, it is written:--
+
+
+     She was like a lily fresh and green,
+     Soon cast down and no more seen.
+
+
+and of John Cook:
+
+
+     Pope said an honest man
+     Is the noblest work of God.
+     If Pope's assertion be from error clear,
+     One of God's noblest works lies buried here.
+
+
+[Illustration: _Bosham._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHICHESTER AND THE PLAIN
+
+     Bosham and history--An expensive pun--The Bosham bells--Chidham
+     wheat--The Manhood peninsula--Selsey's adders--Selsey Bill--St.
+     Wilfrid and the Sussex heathen--Pagham Harbour in its palmy
+     days--Bognor--Felpham's great rider--Mr. Hayley and Mrs. Opie--An
+     epitaph and a poem--A fairy's funeral--William Blake in Sussex--The
+     trial of a traitor.
+
+
+On leaving Chichester West Street becomes the Portsmouth Road and passes
+through Fishbourne, a pleasant but dusty village. A mile or so beyond,
+and a little to the south, is Bosham, on one of the several arms of
+Chichester Harbour, once of some importance but now chiefly mud. Bosham
+is the most interesting village in what may be called the Selsey
+peninsula. Yet how has its glory diminished! What is now a quiet abode
+of fishermen and the tarrying-place of yachtsmen and artists (there are
+few Royal Academy exhibitions without the spire of Bosham church) has
+been in its time a very factory of history. Vespasian's camp was hard
+by, and it is possible that certain Roman remains that have been found
+here were once part of his palace. Bosham claims to be the scene of
+Canute's encounter with the encroaching tide; which may be the case,
+although one has always thought of the king rebuking his flatterers
+rather by the margin of the ocean itself than inland at an estuary's
+edge. But beyond question Canute had a palace here, and his daughter was
+buried in the church.
+
+[Sidenote: A COSTLY PUN]
+
+Earl Godwin, father of Harold, last of the Saxons, dwelt here also. "Da
+mihi basium"--give me a kiss--he is fabled to have said to Archbishop
+Aethelnoth, and on receiving it to have taken the salute as acquiescence
+in the request--"Da mihi Bosham": probably the earliest and also the
+most expensive recorded example in England of this particular form of
+humour.
+
+It was from Bosham that Harold sailed on that visit to the Duke of
+Normandy which resulted in the battle of Hastings. In the Bayeux
+tapestry he may be seen riding to Bosham with his company, and also
+putting up prayers for the success of his mission. Of this success we
+shall see more when we come to Battle. Bosham furthermore claims Hubert
+of Bosham, the author of the _Book of Becket's Martyrdom_, who was with
+Saint Thomas of Canterbury when the assassins stabbed him to the death.
+
+The church is of great age; it is even claimed that the tower is the
+original Saxon. The circumstance that in the representation of the
+edifice in the Bayeux tapestry there is no tower has been urged against
+this theory, although architectural realism in embroidery has never been
+very noticeable. The bells (it is told) were once carried off in a
+Danish raid; but they brought their captors no luck--rather the reverse,
+since they so weighed upon the ship that she sank. When the present
+bells ring, the ancient submerged peal is said to ring also in sympathy
+at the bottom of the Channel--a pretty habit, which would suggest that
+bell metal is happily and wisely superior to changes of religion, were
+it not explained by the unromantic principles of acoustics.
+
+A heavy pole, known as the staff of Bevis of Southampton (and Arundel),
+was of old kept in Bosham church.
+
+At high water Bosham is the fair abode of peace. When every straggling
+arm of the harbour is brimming full, when their still surfaces reflect
+the sky with a brighter light, and the fishing boats ride erect, Bosham
+is serenely beautiful and restful. But at low tide she is a slut: the
+withdrawing floods lay bare vast tracts of mud; the ships heel over into
+attitudes disreputably oblique; stagnation reigns.
+
+[Sidenote: CHIDHAM WHEAT]
+
+Chidham, by Bosham, is widely famous for its wheat. Chidham White, or
+Hedge, wheat was first produced a little more than a century ago by Mr.
+Woods, a farmer. He noticed one afternoon (probably on a Sunday, when
+farmers are most noticing) an unfamiliar patch of wheat growing in a
+hedge. It contained thirty ears, in which were fourteen hundred corns.
+Mr. Woods carefully saved it and sowed it. The crop was eight pounds and
+a half. These he sowed, and the crop was forty eight gallons. Thus it
+multiplied, until the time came to distribute it to other farmers at a
+high price. The cultivation of Chidham wheat by Mr. Woods at one side of
+the county, synchronised with the breeding of the best Southdown sheep
+by John Ellman at the other, as we shall see later.
+
+South of Chichester stretches the Manhood peninsula, of which Selsey is
+the principal town: the part of Sussex most neglected by the traveller.
+In a county of hills the stranger is not attracted by a district that
+might almost have been hewn out of Holland. But the ornithologist knows
+its value, and in a world increasingly bustling and progressive there is
+a curious fascination in so remote and deliberate a region, over which,
+even in the finest weather and during the busiest harvest, a suggestion
+of desolation broods. Nothing, one feels, can ever introduce Success
+into this plain, and so thinking, one is at peace.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MONOTONY OF MANHOOD]
+
+A tramway between Chichester and Selsey has to some extent opened up the
+east side of the peninsula, but the west is still remote and will
+probably remain so. The country is, however, not interesting: a dead
+level of dusty road and grass or arable land, broken only by hedges,
+dykes, white cottages, and the many homesteads within their ramparts of
+wind-swept elms. Wheat and oats are the prevailing crops, still for the
+most part cut and bound by hand. Of the villages in the centre of the
+peninsula Sidlesham is the most considerable, with its handsome square
+church tower and its huge red tide-mill, now silent and weather-worn,
+standing mournfully at the head of the dry harbour of Pagham, whose
+waters once turned its wheels. On the west, on the shores of the Bosham
+estuary, or Chichester Harbour, are the sleepy amphibious villages of
+Appledram, famous once for its salt and its smugglers, Birdham, and
+Earnley. Let no one be tempted to take a direct line across the fields
+from Selsey to Earnley, for dykes and canals must effectually stop him.
+Indeed, cross country walking in this part of the country is practically
+an impossibility, except by continuous deviations and doublings. In
+attempting one day to reach Earnley from Selsey in this way (after
+giving up the beach in despair), I came upon several adders, and I once
+found one crossing a road absolutely in Selsey.
+
+Selsey is a straggling white village, or town, over populous with
+visitors in summer, empty, save for its regular inhabitants, in winter.
+The oldest and truest part of Selsey is a fishing village on the east
+shore of the Bill, a little settlement of tarred tenements and lobster
+pots. Selsey church, now on the confines of the town, once stood a mile
+or more away; whither it was removed (the stones being numbered) and,
+like Temple Bar, again set up. The chancel was, however, not removed,
+but left desolate in the fields.
+
+Selsey Bill is a tongue of land projecting into a shallow sea. A
+lighthouse being useless to warn strange mariners of the sandbanks of
+this district, a lightship known as the Owers flashes its rays far out
+in the channel. The sea has played curious pranks on the Selsey coast.
+Beneath the beach and a large tract of the sea now lies what was once,
+four hundred years ago, a park of deer, which in its most prosperous day
+extended for miles. The shallow water covering it is still called the
+park by the fishermen, who drop their nets where the bucks and does of
+Selsey were wont to graze.
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX REPELS ST. WILFRID]
+
+But the sea has obliterated more than the pasturage of the deer; a mile
+distant from the present shore stood the first monastery erected in
+Sussex after Wilfrid's conversion of the South Saxons to Christianity.
+Although Saint Wilfrid eventually found a home in Sussex and worked hard
+among its people, his first attempt to bring Christianity to the county
+was, according to his friend Edda's _Vita Wilfridi_, ill-starred. I
+quote the story:--
+
+"A great gale blowing from the South-east, the swelling waves threw them
+on the unknown coast of the South Saxons. The sea too left the ship and
+men, and retreating from the land and leaving the shore uncovered,
+retired into the depths of the abyss.
+
+"And the heathen, coming with a great army, intended to seize the ship,
+to divide the spoil of money, to take them captives forthwith, and to
+put to the sword those who resisted. To whom our great bishop spoke
+gently and peaceably, offering much money, wishing to redeem their
+souls.
+
+"But they with stern and cruel hearts like Pharaoh would not let the
+people of the Lord go, saying proudly that, 'All that the sea threw on
+the land became as much theirs as their own property.'
+
+"And the idolatrous chief priest of the heathen, standing on a lofty
+mound, strove like Balaam to curse the people of God, and to bind their
+hands by his magic arts.
+
+"Then one of the bishop's companions hurled, like David, a stone,
+blessed by all the people of God, which struck the cursing magician in
+the forehead and pierced his brain, when an unexpected death surprised,
+as it did Goliath, falling back a corpse in sandy places.
+
+"The heathen therefore preparing to fight, vainly attacked the people of
+God. But the Lord fought for the few, even as Gideon by the command of
+the Lord, with 300 warriors slew at one attack 12,000 of the Midianites.
+
+"And so the comrades of our holy bishop, well-armed and brave, though
+few in number (they were 120 men, the number of the years of Moses),
+determined and agreed that none should turn his back in flight from the
+other, but would either win death with glory, or life with victory (for
+both alike are easy to the Lord). So S. Wilfrith with his clerk fell on
+his knees, and lifting his hands to Heaven again sought help from the
+Lord. For, as Moses triumphed when Hur and Aaron supported his hands, by
+frequently imploring the protection of the Lord, when Joshua the son of
+Nun was fighting with the people of God against Amalek, thus these few
+Christians after thrice repulsing the fierce and untamed heathen, routed
+them with great slaughter, with a loss strange to say of only five on
+their side.
+
+"And their great priest (Wilfrith) prayed to the Lord his God, who
+immediately ordered the sea to return a full hour before its wont. So
+that when the heathen, on the arrival of their king, were preparing for
+a fourth attack with all their forces, the rising sea covered with its
+waves the whole of the shore, and floated the ship, which sailed into
+the deep. But, greatly glorified by God, and returning Him thanks, with
+a South wind they reached Sandwich, a harbour of safety."
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN WESLEY'S TESTIMONY]
+
+The Sussex people, it would seem, do not take kindly to missionaries,
+for John Wesley records that he had less success in this county than in
+all England.
+
+Between Selsey and Bognor lies Pagham, famous in the pages of Knox's
+_Ornithological Rambles_, but otherwise unknown. Of the lost glories of
+Pagham, which was once a harbour, but is now dry, let Mr. Knox
+speak:--"Here in the dead long summer days, when not a breath of air
+has been stirring, have I frequently remained for hours, stretched on
+the hot shingle, and gazed at the osprey as he soared aloft, or watched
+the little islands of mud at the turn of the tide, as each gradually
+rose from the receding waters, and was successively taken possession of
+by flocks of sandpipers and ring-dotterels, after various
+circumvolutions on the part of each detachment, now simultaneously
+presenting their snowy breasts to the sunshine, now suddenly turning
+their dusky backs, so that the dazzled eye lost sight of them from the
+contrast; while the prolonged cry of the titterel,[2] and the melancholy
+note of the peewit from the distant swamp, have mingled with the scream
+of the tern and the taunting laugh of the gull.
+
+[Sidenote: PAGHAM'S LOST GLORIES]
+
+"Here have I watched the oyster-catcher, as he flew from point to point,
+and cautiously waded into the shallow water; and the patient heron, that
+pattern of a fisherman, as with retracted neck, and eyes fixed on
+vacancy, he has stood for hours without a single snap, motionless as a
+statue. Here, too, have I pursued the guillemot, or craftily endeavoured
+to cut off the retreat of the diver, by mooring my boat across the
+narrow passage through which alone he could return to the open sea
+without having recourse to his reluctant wings. Nor can I forget how
+often, during the Siberian winter of 1838, when 'a whole gale,' as the
+sailors have it, has been blowing from the north-east, I used to take up
+my position on the long and narrow ridge of shingle which separated this
+paradise from the raging waves without, and sheltered behind a hillock
+of seaweed, with my long duck-gun and a trusty double, or half buried in
+a hole in the sand, I used to watch the legions of water-birds as they
+neared the shore, and dropped distrustfully among the breakers, at a
+distance from the desired haven, until, gaining confidence from
+accession of numbers, some of the bolder spirits--the pioneers of the
+army--would flap their wings, rise from the white waves, and make for
+the calm water. Here they come! I can see the pied golden-eye
+pre-eminent among the advancing party; now the pochard, with his
+copper-coloured head and neck, may be distinguished from the darker
+scaup-duck; already the finger is on the trigger, when, perhaps, they
+suddenly veer to the right and left, far beyond the reach of my longest
+barrel or, it may be, come swishing overhead, and leave a companion or
+two struggling on the shingle or floating on the shallow waters of the
+harbour."
+
+Pagham Harbour is now reclaimed, and where once was mud, or, at high
+tide, shallow water, is rank grass and thistles. One ship that seems to
+have waited a little too long before making for the open sea again, now
+lies high and dry, a forlorn hulk. Pagham church is among the airiest
+that I know, with a shingle spire, the counterpart of Bosham's on the
+other side of the peninsula.
+
+The walk from Pagham to Bognor, along the sand, is uninspiring and not
+too easy, for the sand can be very soft. About a mile west of Bognor one
+is driven inland, just after passing as perfect an example of the simple
+yet luxurious seaside home as I remember to have seen: all on one floor,
+thatched, shaded by trees, surrounded by its garden and facing the
+Channel.
+
+[Sidenote: EARLY BOGNOR]
+
+Among the unattractive types of town few are more dismal than the
+watering-place _manque_. Bognor must, I fear, come under this heading.
+Its reputation, such as it is, was originally made by Princess
+Charlotte, daughter of George III., who found the air recuperative, and
+who was probably not unwilling to lend her prestige to a resort, as her
+brother George was doing at Brighton, and her sister Amelia had done at
+Worthing. But before the Princess Charlotte Sir Richard Hotham, the
+hatter, had come, determined at any cost to make the town popular. One
+of his methods was to rename it Hothampton. His efforts were, however,
+only moderately successful, and he died in 1799, leaving to what
+Horsfield calls "his astonished heirs" only _L_8,000 out of a great
+fortune. The name Hothampton soon vanished.
+
+The local authorities of Bognor seem to be keenly alive to the value of
+enterprise, for their walls are covered with instructions as to what may
+or may not be done in the interests of cleanliness and popularity; a new
+sea-wall has been built; receptacles for waste paper continually
+confront one, and deck chairs at twopence for three hours are
+practically unavoidable. And yet Bognor remains a dull place, once the
+visitor has left his beach abode--tent or bathing box, whichever it may
+be. It seems to be a town without resources. But it has the interest,
+denied one in more fashionable watering-places, of presenting old and
+new Bognor at the same moment; not that old Bognor is really old, but it
+is instructive to see the kind of crescent which was considered the last
+word in architectural enterprise when our great-grandmothers were young
+and would take the sea air.
+
+[Sidenote: A POET ON HORSEBACK]
+
+From Bognor it is a mere step to Felpham, a village less than a mile to
+the east. Whether or not one goes there to-day is a matter of taste; but
+a hundred years ago to omit a visit was to confess one's-self a boor,
+for William Hayley, the poet and friend of genius, lived there, and his
+castellated stucco house became a shrine. At that day it seems to have
+been no uncommon sight for the visitor to Bognor to be refreshed by the
+spectacle of the poet falling from his horse. According to his
+biographer, Cowper's Johnny of Norfolk, Hayley descended to earth almost
+as often as Alice's White Knight, partly from the high spirit of his
+steed, and partly from a habit which he never abandoned of wearing
+military spurs and carrying an umbrella. The memoir of the poet contains
+this agreeable passage: "The Editor was once riding gently by his side,
+on the stony beach of Bognor, when the wind suddenly reversed his
+umbrella as he unfolded it; his horse, with a single but desperate
+plunge, pitched him on his head in an instant.... On another occasion,
+on the same visit ... he was tost into the air on the Downs, at the
+precise moment when an interested friend whom they had just left, being
+apprehensive of what would happen, was anxiously viewing him from his
+window, through a telescope." Those who look through telescopes are
+rarely so fortunate. It is odd that Hayley, a delicate and heavy man
+suffering from hip-disease, should have taken so little hurt. Although
+he had a covered passage for horse exercise in the grounds of his villa,
+no amount of practice seems to have improved his seat. This covered way
+has been removed, but a mulberry tree planted by Hayley still
+flourishes.
+
+Whenever Hayley was ill he became an object of intense interest to
+visitors at Bognor. Binsted's Library in the town exhibited a daily
+bulletin; and in 1819 the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg called upon
+him, while the Princess of Hesse Homburg on her return sent a
+prescription from Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: HAYLEY HOUR BY HOUR]
+
+Mrs. Opie, the novelist, who stayed with Mr. Hayley every summer, and
+also served as a magnet to devout sojourners at Bognor, has left an
+account of the poet's habits which is vastly more entertaining than his
+poetry. He rose at six or earlier and at once composed some devotional
+verse. At breakfast, he read to Mrs. Opie; afterwards Mrs. Opie read to
+him. At eleven they drank coffee, and before he dressed for dinner, a
+very temperate meal, Mrs. Opie sang. After dinner there was more reading
+aloud, the matter being either manuscript compositions of Mr. Hayley's,
+or modern publications. Mr. Hayley took cocoa and Mrs. Opie tea, and
+afterwards Mrs. Opie read aloud or sang. At nine, the servants came to
+prayers, which were original compositions of Mr. Hayley's, read by him
+in a very impressive manner, and before bed, Mrs. Opie sang one of Mr.
+Hayley's hymns.
+
+Hayley's grave is at Felpham, and his epitaph by Mrs. Opie may be read
+by the industrious on the wall of the church. Among the many epitaphs on
+his neighbours by Hayley himself, who had a special knack of mortuary
+verse, is this on a Felpham blacksmith:--
+
+
+     My sledge and hammer lie reclined;
+     My bellows too have lost their wind;
+     My fire's extinct; my forge decay'd,
+     And in the dust my vice is laid;
+     My coal is spent, my iron gone;
+     The nails are driven--my work is done.
+
+
+The last verses that Hayley wrote have more charm and delicacy than
+perhaps anything else among his works:
+
+
+     Ye gentle birds that perch aloof,
+     And smooth your pinions on my roof,
+     Preparing for departure hence
+     Ere winter's angry threats commence;
+     Like you, my soul would smooth her plume
+     For longer flights beyond the tomb.
+
+     May God, by whom is seen and heard
+     Departing man and wandering bird,
+     In mercy mark us for his own,
+     And guide us to the land unknown.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A FAIRY'S FUNERAL]
+
+But it is not Hayley that gives its glory to Felpham. The glory of
+Felpham is that William Blake was happy there for nearly three years. It
+was at Felpham that he saw the fairy's funeral. "Did you ever see a
+fairy's funeral, ma'am?" he asked a visitor. "Never, sir!" "I have!... I
+was walking alone in my garden; there was great stillness among the
+branches and flowers, and more than common sweetness in the air; I heard
+a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. At last I saw
+the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I saw a procession of
+creatures, of the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers,
+bearing a body laid out on a rose-leaf, which they buried with songs,
+and then disappeared. It was a fairy's funeral!"
+
+Blake settled at Felpham to be near Hayley, for whom he had a number of
+commissions to execute. He engraved illustrations to Hayley's works,
+and painted eighteen heads for Hayley's library--among them,
+Shakespeare, Homer, and Hayley himself; but all have vanished, the
+present owner knows not where.
+
+In some verses which Blake addressed to Anna Flaxman, the wife of the
+sculptor, in September, 1800, a few days before moving from London to
+the Sussex coast, he says:--
+
+
+     This song to the flower of Flaxman's joy;
+     To the blossom of hope, for a sweet decoy;
+     Do all that you can and all that you may
+     To entice him to Felpham and far away.
+
+     Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there;
+     The ladder of Angels descends through the air,
+     On the turret its spiral does softly descend,
+     Through the village then winds, at my cot it does end.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE PROPHETS AT FELPHAM]
+
+Blake's house still stands, a retired, thatched cottage, facing the sea,
+but some distance from it. In a letter to Flaxman a little later, he
+says, "Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual
+than London. Heaven opens here on all sides its golden gates; the
+windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants
+are more distinctly heard, their forms more distinctly seen; and my
+cottage is also a shadow of their houses." Beside the sea Blake communed
+with the spirits of Dante and Homer, Milton and the Hebrew Prophets.
+
+Blake's sojourn at Felpham ended in 1803. A grotesque and annoying
+incident marred its close, the story of which, as told by the poet in a
+letter to Mr. Butler, certainly belongs to the history of Sussex. It
+should, however, first be stated that an ex-soldier in the Royal
+Dragoons, named John Scholfield, had accused Blake of uttering seditious
+words. The letter runs:--"His enmity arises from my having turned him
+out of my garden, into which he was invited as an assistant by a
+gardener at work therein, without my knowledge that he was so invited. I
+desired him, as politely as possible, to go out of the garden; he made
+me an impertinent answer. I insisted on his leaving the garden; he
+refused. I still persisted in desiring his departure. He then threatened
+to knock out my eyes, with many abominable imprecations, and with some
+contempt for my person; it affronted my foolish pride. I therefore took
+him by the elbows, and pushed him before me until I had got him out.
+There I intended to have left him; but he, turning about, put himself
+into a posture of defiance, threatening and swearing at me. I, perhaps
+foolishly and perhaps not, stepped out at the gate, and, putting aside
+his blows, took him again by the elbows, and, keeping his back to me,
+pushed him forward down the road about fifty yards--he all the while
+endeavouring to turn round and strike me, and raging and cursing, which
+drew out several neighbours. At length when I had got him to where he
+was quartered, which was very quickly done, we were met at the gate by
+the master of the house--the Fox Inn--(who is the proprietor of my
+cottage) and his wife and daughter, and the man's comrade, and several
+other people. My landlord compelled the soldiers to go indoors, after
+many abusive threats against me and my wife from the two soldiers; but
+not one word of threat on account of sedition was uttered at that time."
+
+[Sidenote: WILLIAM BLAKE, TRAITOR]
+
+As a result, Blake was haled before the magistrates and committed for
+trial. The trial was held in the Guildhall at Chichester, on January
+11th, 1804. Hayley, in spite of having been thrown from his horse on a
+flint with, says Gilchrist, Blake's biographer, "more than usual
+violence" was in attendance to swear to the poet's character, and
+Cowper's friend Rose, a clever barrister, had been retained. According
+to the report in the County paper, "William Blake, an engraver at
+Felpham, was tried on a charge exhibited against him by two soldiers for
+having uttered seditious and treasonable expressions, such as 'd--n the
+king, d--n all his subjects, d--n his soldiers, they are all slaves;
+when Buonaparte comes, it will be cut-throat for cut-throat, and the
+weakest must go to the wall; I will help him; &c., &c.'" Blake
+electrified the court by calling out "False!" in the midst of the
+military evidence, the invented character of which was, however, so
+obvious that an acquittal resulted. "In defiance of all decency," the
+spectators cheered, and Hayley carried off the sturdy Republican (as he
+was at heart) to Mid Lavant, to sup at Mrs. Poole's.
+
+[Sidenote: BLAKE'S FLASHING EYE]
+
+Mr. Gilchrist found an old fellow who had been present at the trial,
+drawn thither by the promise of seeing the great man of the
+neighbourhood, Mr. Hayley. All that he could remember was Blake's
+flashing eye.
+
+The Fox Inn, by the way, is still as it was, but the custom, I fancy,
+goes more to the Thatched House, which adds to the charms of refreshment
+a museum containing such treasures as a petrified cocoanut, the skeleton
+of a lobster twenty-eight years old, and a representation of Moses in
+the bulrushes.
+
+A third and fourth great man, of a different type both from Hayley and
+Blake, met at Felpham in 1819. One was Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ
+Church, who, lying on his death-bed in the Manor House, was visited by
+the other--his old pupil, the First Gentleman in Europe.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] The Sussex provincial name for the whimbrel.
+
+[Illustration: _Arundel._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ARUNDEL AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
+
+     A feudal town--Castles ruined and habitable--The old religion and
+     the new--Bevis of Southampton--Lord Thurlow lays an egg--A noble
+     park--A song in praise of Sussex--The father of cricket.
+
+
+Seen from the river or from the east side of the Arun valley, Arundel is
+the most imposing town in Sussex. Many are larger, many are equally old,
+or older; but none wears so unusual and interesting an air, not even
+Lewes among her Downs.
+
+Arundel clings to the side of a shaggy hill above the Arun. Castle,
+cathedral, church--these are Arundel; the town itself is secondary,
+subordinate, feudal. The castle is what one likes a castle to be--a mass
+of battlemented stone, with a keep, a gateway, and a history, and yet
+more habitable than ever. So many of the rich make no effort to live in
+their ancestral halls; and what might be a home, carrying on the
+tradition of ages, is so often only a mere show, that to find an
+historic castle like Arundel still lived in is very gratifying. In
+Sussex alone are several half-ruined houses that the builders could
+quickly make habitable once more. Arundel Castle, in spite of time and
+the sieges of 1102, 1139, and 1643, is both comfortable and modern;
+Arundel still depends for her life upon the complaisance of her
+over-lord.
+
+[Sidenote: MODERN MEDIEVALISM]
+
+I know of no town with so low a pulse as this precipitous little
+settlement under the shadow of Rome and the Duke. In spite of picnic
+parties in the park, in spite of anglers from London, in spite of the
+railway in the valley, Arundel is still medieval and curiously foreign.
+On a very hot day, as one climbs the hill to the cathedral, one might be
+in old France, and certainly in the Middle Ages.
+
+Time's revenges have had their play in this town. Although the church is
+still bravely of the establishment, half of it is closed to the Anglican
+visitor (the chancel having been adjudged the private property of the
+Dukes of Norfolk), and the once dominating position of the edifice has
+been impaired by the proximity of the new Roman Catholic church of St.
+Philip Neri, which the present Duke has been building these many years.
+Within, it is finished, a very charming and delicate feat in stone; but
+the spire has yet to come. The old Irish soldier, humorous and
+bemedalled, who keeps watch and ward over the fane, is not the least of
+its merits.
+
+Although the chancel of the parish church has been closed, permission to
+enter may occasionally be obtained. It is rich in family tombs of great
+interest and beauty, including that of the nineteenth Earl of Arundel,
+the patron of William Caxton. In the siege of Arundel Castle in 1643,
+the soldiers of the parliamentarians, under Sir William Waller, fired
+their cannon from the church tower. They also turned the church into a
+barracks, and injured much stone work beyond repair. A fire beacon
+blazed of old on the spire to serve as a mark for vessels entering
+Littlehampton harbour.
+
+Bevis of Southampton, the giant who, when he visited the Isle of Wight,
+waded thither, was a warder at Arundel Castle; where he ate a whole ox
+every week with bread and mustard, and drank two hogsheads of beer.
+Hence "Bevis Tower." His sword Morglay is still to be seen in the
+armoury of the castle; his bones lie beneath a mound in the park; and
+the town was named after his horse. So runs a pretty story, which is,
+however, demolished with the ruthlessness that comes so easily to the
+antiquary and philologist. Bevis Tower, science declares, was named
+probably after another Bevis--there was one at the Battle of Lewes, who
+took prisoner Richard, King of the Romans, and was knighted for
+it--while Arundel is a corruption of "hirondelle," a swallow. Mr. Lower
+mentions that in recent times in Sussex "Swallow" was a common name in
+stables, even for heavy dray horses. But before accepting finally the
+swallow theory, we ought to hear what Fuller has to say:--"Some will
+have it so named from _Arundel_ the _Horse_ of _Beavoice_, the great
+_Champion_. I confess it is not without precedence in _Antiquity_ for
+_Places_ to take _names_ from _Horses_, meeting with the _Promontory
+Bucephalus_ in Peloponesus, where some report the _Horse_ of _Alexander_
+buried, and Bellonius will have it for the same cause called _Cavalla_
+at this day. But this _Castle_ was so called long before that _Imaginary
+Horse_ was _foled_, who cannot be fancied elder than his Master
+Beavoice, flourishing after the Conquest, long before which _Arundel_
+was so called from the river _Arund_ running hard by it."
+
+[Sidenote: LORD THURLOW LAYS AN EGG]
+
+The owls that once multiplied in the keep have now disappeared. They
+were established there a hundred years or so ago by the eleventh Duke,
+and certain of them were known by the names of public men. "Please, your
+Grace, Lord Thurlow has laid an egg," is an historic speech handed down
+by tradition. Lord Thurlow, the owl in question, died at a great age in
+1859.
+
+[Illustration: _The Arun at North Stoke._]
+
+[Sidenote: ARUNDEL PARK]
+
+To walk through Arundel Park is to receive a vivid impression of the
+size and richness of our little isolated England. Two or three great
+towns could be hidden in it unknown to each other. Valley succeeds to
+valley; new herds of deer come into sight at almost every turn; as far
+as the eye can see the grass hills roll away. Those accustomed to parks
+whose deer are always huddled close and whose wall is never distant, are
+bewildered by the vastness of this enclosure. Yet one has also the
+feeling that such magnificence is right: to so lovely a word as Arundel,
+to the Premier Duke and Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, should
+fittingly fall this far-spreading and comely pleasaunce. Had Arundel
+Park been small and empty of deer what a blunder it would be.
+
+Walking west of Arundel through the vast Rewell Wood, we come suddenly
+upon Punch-bowl Green, and open a great green valley, dominated by the
+white facade of Dale Park House, below Madehurst, one of the most remote
+of Sussex villages.
+
+[Sidenote: SLINDON]
+
+By keeping due west for another mile Slindon is reached. This village is
+one of the Sussex backwaters, as one might say. It lies on no road that
+any one ever travels except for the purpose of going to Slindon or
+coming from it; and those that perform either of these actions are few.
+Yet all who have not seen Slindon are by so much the poorer, for Slindon
+House is nobly Elizabethan, with fine pictures and hiding-places, and
+Slindon beeches are among the aristocracy of trees. And here I should
+like to quote a Sussex poem of haunting wistfulness and charm, which was
+written by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who once walked to Rome and is an old
+dweller at Slindon:--
+
+[Sidenote: A SOUTH COUNTRY SONG]
+
+
+                THE SOUTH COUNTRY.
+
+     When I am living in the Midlands,
+       That are sodden and unkind,
+     I light my lamp in the evening:
+       My work is left behind;
+     And the great hills of the South Country
+       Come back into my mind.
+
+     The great hills of the South Country
+       They stand along the sea:
+     And it's there walking in the high woods
+       That I could wish to be,
+     And the men that were boys when I was a boy
+       Walking along with me.
+
+     The men that live in North England
+       I saw them for a day:
+     Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,
+       Their skies are fast and grey:
+     From their castle-walls a man may see
+       The mountains far away.
+
+     The men that live in West England
+       They see the Severn strong,
+     A-rolling on rough water brown
+       Light aspen leaves along.
+     They have the secret of the Rocks,
+       And the oldest kind of song.
+
+     But the men that live in the South Country
+       Are the kindest and most wise,
+     They get their laughter from the loud surf,
+       And the faith in their happy eyes
+     Comes surely from our Sister the Spring,
+       When over the sea she flies;
+     The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,
+       She blesses us with surprise.
+
+     I never get between the pines,
+       But I smell the Sussex air,
+     Nor I never come on a belt of sand
+       But my home is there;
+     And along the sky the line of the Downs
+       So noble and so bare.
+
+     A lost thing could I never find,
+       Nor a broken thing mend;
+     And I fear I shall be all alone
+       When I get towards the end.
+     Who will there be to comfort me,
+       Or who will be my friend?
+
+     I will gather and carefully make my friends
+       Of the men of the Sussex Weald,
+     They watch the stars from silent folds,
+       They stiffly plough the field.
+     By them and the God of the South Country
+       My poor soul shall be healed.
+
+     If I ever become a rich man,
+       Or if ever I grow to be old,
+     I will build a house with deep thatch
+       To shelter me from the cold,
+     And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
+       And the story of Sussex told.
+
+     I will hold my house in the high wood
+       Within a walk of the sea,
+     And the men who were boys when I was a boy
+       Shall sit and drink with me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: NEWLAND, NYREN, AND SILVER BILLY]
+
+Richard Newland, the father of serious cricket, came from this parish.
+He was born in 1718, or thereabouts, and in 1745 he made 88 for England
+against Kent. He was left-handed, and the finest bat ever seen in those
+days. He taught Richard Nyren, of Hambledon, all the skill and judgment
+that that noble general possessed; Nyren communicated his knowledge to
+the Hambledon eleven, and the game was made. An interest in historical
+veracity compels me to add that William Beldham--Silver Billy--talking
+to Mr. Pycroft, discounted some of Nyren's praise. "Cricket," he said,
+"was played in Sussex very early, before my day at least [he was born in
+1766]; but that there was no good play I know by this, that Richard
+Newland, of Slindon in Sussex, as you say, sir, taught old Richard
+Nyren, and that no Sussex man could be found to play Newland. Now a
+second-rate man of our parish beat Newland easily; so you may judge what
+the rest of Sussex then were." But this is disregarding the
+characteristic uncertainty of the game.
+
+If one would spend a day far from mankind, on high ground, there is no
+better way than to walk from Arundel through Houghton Forest (where, as
+we have seen, Charles II. avoided the Governor) to Cocking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+LITTLEHAMPTON
+
+     A children's paradise--Wind-swept villages--Cary and
+     Coleridge--Sussex folklore--Climping--Richard Jefferies and
+     Sussex--John Taylor the Water Poet--Highdown Hill--A miller in love
+     with death--A digression on mills and millers--Treason at
+     Patching--A wife in a thousand--A Sussex truffler--The Palmer
+     triplets.
+
+
+Littlehampton is favoured in having both sea and river. It also has
+lawns between the houses and the beach, as at Dieppe, and is as nearly a
+children's paradise as exists. The sea at low tide recedes almost beyond
+the reach of the ordinary paddler, which is as it should be except for
+those that would swim. A harbour, a pier, a lighthouse, a windmill--all
+these are within a few yards of each other. On the neighbouring beach,
+springing from the stones, you find the yellow-horned poppy, beautiful
+both in flower and leaf, and the delicate tamarisk makes a natural hedge
+parallel with the sea, to Worthing on the one side, and to Bognor on the
+other.
+
+The little villages in the flats behind the eastern tamarisk
+hedge--Rustington, Preston, Ferring, are, in summer, veritable sun
+traps, with their white walls dazzling in radiance. Such trees as grow
+about here all bow to the north-east, bent to that posture by the
+prevailing south-west winds. A Sussex man, on the hills or south of
+them, lost at night, has but to ascertain the outline of a tree, and he
+may get his bearings. If he cannot see so much as that he has but to
+feel the bark for lichen, which grows on the north east, or lee, side.
+
+It was at Littlehampton in September, 1817, that Coleridge met Cary, the
+translator of Dante. Cary was walking on the beach, reciting Homer to
+his son. Up came a noticeable man with large grey eyes: "Sir, yours is a
+face I should know. I am Samuel Taylor Coleridge."
+
+[Sidenote: A CHURCH DUEL]
+
+The county paper for February 27, 1796, has this paragraph: "On Monday
+last a duel was fought betwixt Mr. R----n and Lieut. B----y, both of
+Littlehampton, in a field near that place, which, after the discharge of
+each a pistol, terminated without bloodshed. The dispute, we understand,
+originated about a pew in the parish church."
+
+A local proverb says that if you eat winkles in March it is as good as a
+dose of medicine; which reminds me that Sussex has many wise sayings of
+its own. Here is a piece of Sussex counsel in connection with the
+roaring month:--
+
+
+               If from fleas you would be free,
+     On the first of March let all your windows closed be.
+
+
+I quote two other rhymes:--
+
+
+     If you would wish your bees to thrive
+     Gold must be paid for every hive;
+     For when they're bought with other money
+     There will be neither swarm nor honey.
+
+     The first butterfly you see,
+     Cut off his head across your knee,
+     Bury the head under a stone
+     And a lot of money will be your own.
+
+
+On Whit Sunday the devout Sussex man eats roast veal and gooseberry
+pudding. A Sussex child born on Sunday can neither be hanged nor
+drowned.
+
+[Sidenote: "CLIMPING FOR PERFECTION"]
+
+West of Littlehampton is an architectural treasure, in the shape of
+Climping church, which no one should miss. The way is over the ferry and
+along the road to the first signboard, when one strikes northward
+towards Ford, and comes suddenly upon this squat and solid fane. A Saxon
+church stood here, built by the Prioress of Leominster, before the
+Conquest: to Roger de Montgomerie was the manor given by the Conqueror,
+as part of the earldom of Arundel and Chichester, together with
+Atherington manor, much of which is now, like Selsey's park, under the
+Channel. De Montgomerie gave Climping manor to the nuns of Almanesches,
+by whom the present Norman fortress-tower (with walls 4-1/4 feet thick)
+was added, and in 1253 John de Climping, the vicar, rebuilt the
+remainder. The church is thus six and a half centuries old, and parts of
+it are older. "Bosham, for antiquity; Boxgrove, for beauty; and
+Climping, for perfection" is the dictum of an antiquary quoted by the
+present vicar in a little pamphlet-history of his parish. As regards the
+Norman doorway, at any rate, he is right: there is nothing in Sussex to
+excel that; while in general architectural attraction the building is of
+the richest. It is also a curiously homely and ingratiating church.
+
+One of the new windows, representing St. Paul, has a peculiar interest,
+as the vicar tells us:--"St. Paul was a prisoner at Rome shortly after
+Caractacus, the British Chief, whose daughter, Claudia, married Pudens,
+both friends of the Apostle (2 Tim. iv. 21). Pudens afterwards commanded
+the Roman soldiers stationed at Regnum (Chichester), and if St. Paul
+came to Britain, at Claudia's request (as ancient writers testify), he
+certainly would visit Sussex. How close this brings us here in Sussex to
+the Bible story!"
+
+At Baylies Court, now a farmhouse, the Benedictine monks of Seez, also
+proteges of Robert de Montgomerie, had their chapel, remains of which
+are still to be seen.
+
+Climping, which otherwise lives its own life, is the resort of golfers
+(who to the vicar's regret play all Sunday and turn Easter Day into "a
+Heathen Festival") and of the sportsmen of the Sussex Coursing Club, who
+find that the terrified Climping hare gives satisfaction beyond most in
+the county.
+
+Of Ford, north of Climping, there is nothing to say, except that popular
+rumour has it that its minute and uninteresting church (the antithesis
+of Climping) was found one day by accident in a bed of nettles.
+
+[Sidenote: JEFFERIES IN SUSSEX]
+
+A good eastern walk from Littlehampton takes one by the sea to Goring,
+and then inland over Highdown Hill to Angmering, and so to Littlehampton
+again or to Arundel, our present centre. Goring touches literature in
+two places. The great house was built by Sir Bysshe Shelley, grandfather
+of the poet; and in the village died, in 1887, Richard Jefferies, author
+of _The Story of My Heart_, after a life of ill-health spent in the
+service of nature. Many beautiful and sympathetic descriptions of Sussex
+are scattered about in Jefferies' books of essays, notably, "To
+Brighton," "The South Down Shepherd," and "The Breeze on Beachy Head" in
+_Nature near London_; "Clematis Lane," "Nature near Brighton," "Sea, Sky
+and Down," and "January in the Sussex Woods" in _The Life of the
+Fields_; "Sunny Brighton" in _The Open Air_, and "The Country-Side,
+Sussex" and "Buckhurst Park" in _Field and Hedgerow_. Jefferies had a
+way of blending experiences and concealing the names of places, which
+makes it difficult to know exactly what part of Sussex he is describing;
+but I think I could lead anyone to Clematis Lane. I might, by the way,
+have remarked of South Harting that the luxuriance of the clematis in
+its hedges is unsurpassed.
+
+John Taylor, the water poet, has a doggerel narrative entitled "A New
+Discovery by Sea with a Wherry from London to Salisbury," 1623, wherein
+he mentions a woful night with fleas at Goring, and pens a couplet
+worthy to take a place with the famous description of a similar
+visitation in _Eothen_:--
+
+
+     Who in their fury nip'd and skip'd so hotly,
+     That all our skins were almost turned to motley.
+
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN TAYLOR AND THE CONSTABLE]
+
+Taylor gives us in the same record a pleasant picture of the Sussex
+constable in 1623:--
+
+
+       The night before a Constable there came,
+     Who asked my trade, my dwelling, and my name,
+     My businesse, and a troupe of questions more,
+     And wherefore we did land vpon that shore?
+     To whom I fram'd my answers true and fit,
+     (According to his plenteous want of wit)
+     But were my words all true or if I ly'd
+     With neither I could get him satisfi'd.
+     He ask'd if we were Pyrats? We said No,
+     (_As if we had we would haue told him so_)
+     He said that Lords sometimes would enterprise
+     T' escape and leaue the Kingdome in disguise:
+     But I assur'd him on my honest word
+     That I was no disguised Knight or Lord.
+     He told me then that I must goe sixe miles
+     T' a Justice there, Sir John or else Sir Giles:
+     I told him I was lothe to goe so farre,
+     And he told me he would my journey barre.
+     Thus what with Fleas and with the seuerall prates
+     Of th' officer, and his _Ass_-sociats
+     We arose to goe, but Fortune bade us stay:
+     The Constable had stolne our oares away,
+     And borne them thence a quarter of a mile
+     Quite through a Lane beyond a gate and stile;
+     And hid them there to hinder my depart,
+     For which I wish'd him hang'd with all my heart.
+     A plowman (for us) found our Oares againe,
+     Within a field well fil'd with Barley Graine.
+       Then madly, gladly, out to sea we thrust,
+     'Gainst windes and stormes, and many a churlish Gust,
+     By _Kingston_ Chappelle and by _Rushington_,
+     By _Little-Hampton_ and by _Middleton_.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE MILLER AND SWEET DEATH]
+
+Highdown, above Goring, is a good hill in itself, conical in shape, as a
+hill should be according to the exacting ideas of childhood, with a
+sweeping view of the coast and the Channel; but its fame as a resort of
+holiday makers comes less from its position and height than from the
+circumstance that John Oliver is buried upon it. John Oliver was the
+miller of Highdown Hill. When not grinding corn he seems to have busied
+himself with thoughts upon the necessary end of all things, to such an
+extent that his meditations on the subject gradually became a mania.
+His coffin was made while he was still a young man, and it remained
+under his bed until its time was ripe, fitted--to bring it to a point of
+preparedness unusual even with the Chinese, those masters of
+anticipatory obsequies--with wheels, which the miller, I doubt not,
+regularly oiled. John Oliver did not stop there. Having his coffin
+comfortably at hand, he proceeded to erect his tomb. This was built in
+1766, with tedious verses upon it from the miller's pen; while in an
+alcove near the tomb was a mechanical arrangement of death's-heads which
+might keep the miller's thoughts from straying, when, as with Dr.
+Johnson's philosopher, cheerfulness would creep in.
+
+The miller lived in the company of his coffin, his tomb, and his
+_mementi mori_, until 1793, when at the age of eighty-four his hopes
+were realised. Those who love death die old.
+
+Between two and three thousand persons attended the funeral; no one was
+permitted to wear any but gay clothes; and the funeral sermon was read
+by a little girl of twelve, from the text, Micah vii. 8, 9.
+
+[Sidenote: A DIGRESSION ON MILLS]
+
+The mill of John Oliver has vanished, nothing but a depression in the
+turf now indicating where its foundations stood. Too many Sussex
+windmills have disappeared. Clayton still has her twain, landmarks for
+many miles--I have seen them on exceptionally clear days from the
+Kentish hills--and other windmills are scattered over the county; but
+many more than now exist have ceased to be, victims of the power of
+steam. There is probably no contrast aesthetically more to the
+disadvantage of the modern substitute than that of the steam mill of
+to-day with the windmill of yesterday. The steam mill is always ugly,
+always dusty, always noisy, usually in a town. The windmill stands high
+and white, a thing of life and radiance and delicate beauty, surrounded
+by grass, in communion with the heavens. Such noise as it has is
+elemental, justifiable, like a ship's cordage in a gale. No one would
+paint a steam mill; a picture with a windmill can hardly be a failure.
+Constable, who knew everything about the magic of windmills, painted
+several in Sussex--one even at Brighton.
+
+Brighton now has but one mill. There used to be many: one in the West
+Hill road, a comelier landmark than the stucco Congregational tower that
+has taken its place close by and serves as the town's sentinel from
+almost every point of approach. In 1797 a miller near Brighton
+anticipated American enterprise by moving his mill bodily to a place two
+miles distant by the help of eighty oxen.
+
+Another weakness of steam mills is that they are apparently without
+millers--at least there is no unmistakable dominating presence in a
+white hat, to whom one can confidently apply the definite article, as in
+the mill on the hill. Millers' men there are in plenty, but the miller
+is lacking. This is because steam mills belong to companies. Thus, with
+the passing of the windmill we lose also the miller, that notable figure
+in English life and tradition; always jolly, if the old songs are true;
+often eccentric, as the story of John Oliver has shown; and usually a
+character, as becomes one who lives by the four winds, or by water--for
+the miller of tradition was often found in a water-mill too. The
+water-miller's empire has been threatened less than that of the
+windmill, for there is no sudden cessation of water power as of wind
+power. Sussex still has many water-mills--cool and splashing homes of
+peaceful bustle. Long may they endure.
+
+Highdown Hill has other associations. In 1812 the Gentlemen of the Weald
+met the Gentlemen of the Sea-coast at cricket on its dividing summit.
+The game, which was for one hundred guineas, was a very close thing, the
+Gentlemen of the Weald winning by only seven runs. Among the Gentlemen
+of the Sea-coast was Mr. Osbaldeston, while the principal Gentleman of
+the Weald was Mr. E. H. Budd.
+
+A mile north of Highdown Hill, in a thickly wooded country, are Patching
+and Clapham; Patching celebrated for its pond, which washes the
+high-road to Arundel, and Clapham for its woods. Three hundred and more
+years ago Patching Copse was the scene of a treasonable meeting between
+William Shelley, an ancestor of the poet, one branch of whose family
+long held Michelgrove (where Henry VIII. was entertained by our
+plotter's grandfather), and Charles Paget: sturdy Roman Catholics both,
+who thus sought each other out, on the night of September 16, 1583, to
+confer as to the possibility of invading England, deposing Elizabeth,
+and setting Mary Queen of Scots upon the throne. Nothing came of the
+plot save the imprisonment of Shelley (who was condemned to death but
+escaped the sentence) and the flight of Paget, to hatch further treason
+abroad.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PERFECT WIFE]
+
+The last Shelley to hold Michelgrove, now no more, was Sir John, who,
+after it had been in the family for three hundred and fifty years, sold
+it in 1800. This was the Sir John Shelley who composed the following
+epitaph in Clapham church (one of Sir Gilbert Scott's restorations) to
+commemorate the very remarkable virtues of his lady--untimely snatched
+from his side:--
+
+
+           Here Lyeth the Body of Wilhelmina Shelley
+         who departed this Life the 21st of March 1772
+                   Aged Twenty three years.
+
+          She was a pattern for the World to follow:
+  Such a being both in form and mind perhaps never existed before.
+        A most dutiful, affectionate, and Virtuous Wife,
+              A most tender and Anxious parent,
+              A most sincere and constant Friend,
+            A most amiable and elegant companion;
+          Universally Benevolent, generous, and humane;
+                   The Pride of her own Sex,
+                    The admiration of ours.
+           She lived universally belov'd, and admir'd
+          She died as generally rever'd, and regretted,
+    A loss felt by all who had the happiness of knowing Her,
+By none to be compar'd to _that_ of her disconsolate, affectionate, Loving,
+         & in this World everlastingly Miserable Husband,
+                       Sir JOHN SHELLEY,
+          Who has caused this inscription to be Engrav'd.
+
+
+Horsfield tells us that "the beechwoods in this parish [Patching] and
+its immediate neighbourhood are very productive of the Truffle
+(_Lycoperdon tuber_). About forty years ago William Leach came from the
+West Indies, with some hogs accustomed to hunt for truffles, and
+proceeding along the coast from the Land's End, in Cornwall, to the
+mouth of the River Thames, determined to fix on that spot where he found
+them most abundant. He took four years to try the experiment, and at
+length settled in this parish, where he carried on the business of
+truffle-hunter till his death."
+
+Angmering, which we may take on our return to Arundel, is a typically
+dusty Sussex village, with white houses and thatched roofs, and a rather
+finer church than most. On our way back to Arundel, in the middle of a
+wood, a little more than a mile from Angmering, to the west, we come
+upon an interesting relic of a day when tables bore nobler loads than
+now they do: a decoy pond formed originally to supply wild duck to the
+kitchen of Arundel Castle, but now no longer used. The long tapering
+tunnels of wire netting, into which the tame ducks of the decoy lured
+their wild cousins, are still in place, although the wire has largely
+perished.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PALMER TRIPLETS]
+
+At an old house near the Decoy (now converted into cottages), which any
+native will gladly and amusedly point out, lived, in the reign of Henry
+VIII., Lady Palmer, the famous mother of the Palmer triplets, who were
+distinguished from other triplets, not only by being born each on a
+successive Sunday but by receiving each the honour of knighthood. The
+curious circumstances of their birth seem to be well attested.
+
+[Illustration: _Gateway, Amberley Castle._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AMBERLEY AND PARHAM
+
+     Sussex fish--A straw-blown village--A painter of Sussex light--A
+     castle only in name--Parham's treasures--The Parham
+     heronry--Storrington and the sagacious Jack Pudding--A Sussex
+     audience.
+
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX FISH]
+
+Five miles to the north of Arundel by road (over the Arun at Houghton's
+ancient bridge, restored by the bishops of Chichester in the fifteenth
+century), and a few minutes by rail, is Amberley, the fishing metropolis
+of Sussex, where, every Sunday in the season, London anglers meet to
+drop their lines in friendly rivalry. "Amerley trout" (as Walton calls
+them) and Arundel mullet are the best of the Arun's treasures; and this
+reminds me of Fuller's tribute to Sussex fish, which may well be quoted
+in this watery neighbourhood: "Now, as this County is eminent for both
+_Sea_ and _River-_fish, namely, an _Arundel Mullet_, a _Chichester
+Lobster_, a _Shelsey Cockle_, and an _Amerly Trout_; so _Sussex_
+aboundeth with more _Carpes_ than any other of this Nation. And though
+not so great as _Jovius_ reporteth to be found in the _Lurian Lake_ in
+_Italy_, weighing more than fifty pounds, yet those generally of great
+and goodly proportion. I need not adde, that _Physicians_ account the
+galls of _Carpes_, as also a stone in their heads, to be _Medicinable_;
+only I will observe that, because _Jews_ will not eat _Caviare_ made of
+_Sturgeon_ (because coming from a fish wanting Scales, and therefore
+forbidden in the _Levitical Law_); therefore the _Italians_ make greater
+profit of the _Spaun_ of _Carps_, whereof they make a _Red Caviare_,
+well pleasing the _Jews_ both in _Palate_ and _Conscience_. All I will
+adde of _Carps_ is this, that _Ramus_ himself doth not so much redound
+in _Dichotomies_ as they do; seeing no one bone is to be found in their
+body, which is not _forked_ or divided into two parts at the end
+thereof."
+
+Amberley proper, as distinguished from Amberley of the anglers, is a
+mile from the station and is built on a ridge. The castle is the extreme
+western end of this ridge, the north side of which descends
+precipitously to the marshy plain that extends as far as Pulborough.
+Standing on the castle one sees Pulborough church due north--height
+calling unto height. The castle is now a farm; indeed, all Amberley is a
+huge stockyard, smelling of straw and cattle. It is sheer Sussex--chalky
+soil, whitewashed cottages, huge waggons; and one of the best of Sussex
+painters, and, in his exquisite modest way, of all painters living,
+dwells in the heart of it--Edward Stott, who year after year shows
+London connoisseurs how the clear skin of the Sussex boy takes the
+evening light; and how the Southdown sheep drink at hill ponds beneath a
+violet sky; and that there is nothing more beautiful under the stars
+than a whitewashed cottage just when the lamp is lit.
+
+[Sidenote: AMBERLEY AND PARHAM]
+
+Amberley has no right to lay claim to a castle, for the old ruins are
+not truly, as they seem, the remains of a castellated stronghold, but
+of a crenellated mansion. John Langton, Bishop of Chichester in the
+fourteenth century, was the first builder. Previously the Church lands
+here had been held very jealously, and in 1200 we find Bishop Gilbert de
+Leofard twice excommunicating, and as often absolving, the Earl of
+Arundel for poaching (as he termed it) in Houghton Forest. The Church
+lost Amberley in the sixteenth century. William Rede, who succeeded
+Langton to both house and see, wishing to feel secure in his home,
+craved permission to dig a moat around it and to render it both hostile
+and defensive. Hence its lion-like mien; but it has known no warfare,
+and the castle's mouldering walls now give what assistance they can in
+harbouring live stock. Twentieth-century sheds lean against
+fourteenth-century masonry; faggots are stored in the moat; lawn tennis
+is played in the courtyard; and black pigeons peep from the slits cut
+for arquebusiers.
+
+[Illustration: _Amberley Castle._]
+
+Amberley Castle only once intrudes itself in history: Charles II.,
+during his flight in 1651, spent a night there under the protection of
+Sir John Briscoe, as we saw in Chapter III.
+
+In winter, if you ask an Amberley man where he dwells, he says,
+"Amberley, God help us." In summer he says, "Amberley--where _would_ you
+live?"
+
+From Amberley to Parham one keeps upon the narrow ridge for a mile or
+so, branching off then to the left. Parham's advance guard is seen all
+the way--a clump of fir trees, indicating that the soil there changes to
+sand.
+
+[Sidenote: A NOBLE DAME]
+
+For two possessions is Parham noted: a heronry in the park, and in the
+house a copy of Montaigne with Shakespeare's autograph in it. The house,
+a spreading Tudor mansion, is the seat of Lord Zouche, a descendant of
+the traveller, Robert Curzon, who wrote _The Monasteries of the Levant_,
+that long, leisurely, and fascinating narrative of travel. In addition
+to Montaigne, it enshrines a priceless collection of armour, of
+incunabula and Eastern MSS. Among the pictures are full lengths of Sir
+Philip Sidney and Lady Sidney, and that Penelope D'Arcy--one of Mr.
+Hardy's "Noble Dames"--who promised to marry three suitors in turn and
+did so. We see her again at Firle Place.
+
+A hiding hole for priests and other refugees is in the long gallery,
+access to it being gained through a window seat. There was hidden
+Charles Paget after the Babington conspiracy.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PARHAM HERONS]
+
+Parham Park has deer and a lake and an enchanted forest of sombre trees.
+On the highest ground in this forest is the clump of firs in which the
+famous herons build. The most interesting time to visit the heronry is
+in the breeding season, for then one sees the lank birds continually
+homing from the Amberley Wild Brooks with fishes in their bills and long
+legs streaming behind. The noise is tremendous, beyond all rookeries.
+Mr. Knox's _Ornithological Rambles_, from which I have already quoted
+freely, has this passage: "The herons at Parham assemble early in
+February, and then set about repairing their nests, but the trees are
+never entirely deserted during the winter months; a few birds, probably
+some of the more backward of the preceding season, roosting among their
+boughs every night. They commence laying early in March, and the greater
+part of the young birds are hatched during the early days of April.
+About the end of May they may be seen to flap out of their nests to the
+adjacent boughs, and bask for hours in the warm sunshine; but although
+now comparatively quiet during the day, they become clamorous for food
+as the evening approaches, and indeed for a long time appear to be more
+difficult to wean, and less able to shift for themselves, than most
+birds of a similar age. They may be observed, as late as August, still
+on the trees, screaming for food, and occasionally fed by their parents,
+who forage for them assiduously; indeed, these exertions, so far from
+being relaxed after the setting of the sun, appear to be redoubled
+during the night; for I have frequently disturbed herons when riding by
+moonlight among the low grounds near the river, where I have seldom seen
+them during the day, and several cottagers in the neighbourhood of
+Parham have assured me that their shrill cry may be heard at all hours
+of the night, during the summer season, as they fly to and fro overhead,
+on their passage between the heronry and the open country.
+
+[Illustration: _Amberley Castle, entrance to Churchyard._]
+
+[Sidenote: MANY MIGRATIONS]
+
+"The history or genealogy of the progenitors of this colony is
+remarkable. They were originally brought from Coity Castle, in Wales, by
+Lord Leicester's steward, in James the First's time, to Penshurst, in
+Kent, the seat of Lord de Lisle, where their descendants continued for
+more than two hundred years; from thence they migrated to Michelgrove,
+about seventy miles from Penshurst and eight from Parham; here they
+remained for nearly twenty years, until the proprietor of the estate
+disposed of it to the late Duke of Norfolk, who, having purchased it,
+not as a residence, but with the view of increasing the local property
+in the neighbourhood of Arundel, pulled down the house, and felled one
+or two of the trees on which the herons had constructed their nests. The
+migration commenced immediately, but appears to have been gradual; for
+three seasons elapsed before all the members of the heronry had found
+their way over the Downs to their new quarters in the fir-woods of
+Parham. This occurred about seventeen years ago [written c. 1848]."
+
+Sussex, says Mr. Borrer, author of _The Birds of Sussex_, has two other
+large heronries--at Windmill Hill Place, near Hailsham, and Brede, near
+Winchelsea--and some smaller ones, one being at Molecomb, above
+Goodwood.
+
+Betsy's Oak in Parham Park is said to be so called because Queen
+Elizabeth sat beneath it. But another and more probable legend calls it
+Bates's Oak, after Bates, an archer at Agincourt in the retinue of the
+Earl of Arundel (and in _Henry V._). Good Queen Bess, however, dined in
+the hall of Parham House in 1592. At Northiam, in East Sussex, we shall
+come (not to be utterly baulked) to a tree under which she truly did sit
+and dine too.
+
+[Sidenote: JACK PUDDING'S WISDOM]
+
+Beyond Parham, less than two miles to the east, is Storrington, a quiet
+Sussex village far from the rail and the noise of the world, with the
+Downs within hail, and fine sparsely-inhabited country between them and
+it to wander in. The church is largely modern. I find the following
+sententious paragraph in the county paper for 1792:--"This is an age of
+_Sights_ and _polite entertainment_ in the country as well as in the
+city.--The little town of _Storrington_ has lately been visited by a
+_Company of Comedians_,--_a Mountebank Doctor_,--and a _Puppet Show_.
+One day the Doctor's _Jack Pudding_ finding the shillings come in but
+slowly, exclaimed to his Master, 'Gad, Sir, it is not worth _our_ while
+to stay here any longer, _players_ have got all the _gold_, _we_ all the
+_silver_, and _Punch_ all the _copper_, so, like sagacious locusts, let
+us migrate from the place we helped to impoverish."
+
+[Illustration: _Amberley Church._]
+
+[Sidenote: A TRAVELLING CIRCUS]
+
+[Sidenote: A TIME-HONOURED JOKE]
+
+This reminds me that I saw recently at Petworth, whither we are now
+moving, a travelling circus whose programme included a comic interlude
+that cannot have received the slightest modification since it was first
+planned, perhaps hundreds of years ago. It was sheer essential elemental
+horse-play straight from Bartholomew Fair, and the audience received it
+with rapture that was vouchsafed to nothing else. The story would be too
+long to tell; but briefly, it was a dumb show representation of the
+visit of a guest (the clown) to a wife, unknown to her husband. The
+scenery consisted of a table, a large chest, a heap of straw and a huge
+barrel. The fun consisted in the clown, armed with a bladder on a
+string, hiding in the barrel, from which he would spring up and deliver
+a sounding drub upon the head of whatever other character--husband or
+policeman--might be passing, to their complete perplexity. They were, of
+course, incapable of learning anything from experience. At other times
+he hid himself or others in the straw, in the chest, or under the table.
+When, in a country district such as this, one hears the laughter that
+greets so venerable a piece of pantomime, one is surprised that circus
+owners think it worth while to secure novelties at all. The primitive
+taste of West Sussex, at any rate, cannot require them.
+
+[Illustration: _Pulborough Church._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PETWORTH
+
+     Pulborough and its past--Stopham--Fittleworth--The natural
+     advantages of the Swan--Petworth's feudal air--An historical
+     digression naming many Percies--The third Earl of Egremont--The
+     Petworth pictures--Petworth Park--Cobbett's opinion--The
+     vicissitudes of the Petworth ravens--Tillington's use to business
+     men--A charming epitaph--Noah Mann of the Hambledon Club.
+
+
+Petworth is not on the direct road to Horsham, which is our next centre,
+but it is easily gained from Arundel by rail (changing at Pulborough),
+or by road through Bury, Fittleworth, and Egdean.
+
+[Sidenote: AN ANCIENT FORTRESS]
+
+Pulborough is now nothing: once it was a Gibraltar, guarding Stane
+Street for Rome. The fort was on a mound west of the railway,
+corresponding with the church mound on the east. Here probably was a
+catapulta and certainly a vigilant garrison. Pulborough has no invader
+now but the floods, which every winter transform the green waste at her
+feet into a silver sea, of which Pulborough is the northern shore and
+Amberley the southern. The Dutch _polder_ are not flatter or greener
+than are these intervening meadows. The village stands high and dry
+above the water level, extended in long line quite like a seaside town.
+Excursionists come too, as to a watering place, but they bring rods and
+creels and return at night with fish for the pan.
+
+Between Pulborough and Petworth lie Stopham and Fittleworth, both on the
+Rother, which joins the Arun a little to the west of Pulborough. Stopham
+has the most beautiful bridge in Sussex, dating from the fourteenth
+century, and a little church filled with memorials of the Bartelott
+family. One of Stopham's rectors was Thomas Newcombe, a descendant of
+the author of _The Faerie Queene_, the friend of the author of _Night
+Thoughts_, and the author himself of a formidable poem in twelve books,
+after Milton, called _The Last Judgment_.
+
+Fittleworth has of late become an artists' Mecca, partly because of its
+pretty woods and quaint architecture, and partly because of the warm
+welcome that is offered by the "Swan," which is probably the most
+ingeniously placed inn in the world. Approaching it from the north it
+seems to be the end of all things; the miles of road that one has
+travelled apparently have been leading nowhere but to the "Swan."
+Runaway horses or unsettled chauffeurs must project their passengers
+literally into the open door. Coming from the south, one finds that the
+road narrows by this inn almost to a lane, and the "Swan's" hospitable
+sign, barring the way, exerts such a spell that to enter is a far
+simpler matter than to pass.
+
+[Illustration: _At Pulborough._]
+
+[Sidenote: AN IRRESISTIBLE INN]
+
+The "Swan" is a venerable and rambling building, stretching itself
+lazily with outspread arms; one of those inns (long may they be
+preserved from the rebuilders!) in which one stumbles up or down into
+every room, and where eggs and bacon have an appropriateness that make
+them a more desirable food than ambrosia. The little parlour is
+wainscoted with the votive paintings--a village Diploma Gallery--of
+artists who have made the "Swan" their home.
+
+Fittleworth has a dual existence. In the south it is riparian and low,
+much given to anglers and visitors. In the north it is high and sandy,
+with clumps of firs, living its own life and spreading gorse-covered
+commons at the feet of the walker. Between its southern border and
+Bignor Park is a superb common of sand and heather, an inland paradise
+for children.
+
+Petworth station and Petworth town are far from being the same thing,
+and there are few more fatiguing miles than that which separates them. A
+'bus, it is true, plies between, but it is one of those long, close
+prisons with windows that annihilate thought by their shattering
+unfixedness. Petworth's spire is before one all the way, Petworth itself
+clustering on the side of the hill, a little town with several streets
+rather than a great village all on one artery. I say several streets,
+but this is dead in the face of tradition, which has a joke to the
+effect that a long timber waggon once entered Petworth's single,
+circular street, and has never yet succeeded in emerging. I certainly
+met it.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHADOW OF THE PEER]
+
+The town seems to be beneath the shadow of its lord even more than
+Arundel: it is like Pompeii, with Vesuvius emitting glory far above. One
+must, of course, live under the same conditions if one is to feel the
+authentic thrill; the mere sojourner cannot know it. One wonders, in
+these feudal towns, what it would be like to leave democratic London or
+the independence of one's country fastness, and pass for a while beneath
+the spell of a Duke of Norfolk, or a Baron Leconfield--a spell possibly
+not consciously cast by them at all, but existing none the less, largely
+through the fostering care of the townspeople on the rent-roll, largely
+through the officers controlling the estates; at any rate unmistakable,
+as present in the very air of the streets as is the presage of a
+thunderstorm. Surely, to be so dominated, without actual influence,
+must be very restful. Petworth must be the very home of low-pulsed
+peace; and yet a little oppressive too, with the great house and its
+traditions at the top of the town--like a weight on the forehead. I
+should not like to make Petworth my home, but as a place of pilgrimage,
+and a stronghold of architectural taste, it is almost unique.
+
+[Illustration: _Stopham Bridge._]
+
+[Sidenote: PETWORTH'S HISTORY]
+
+[Sidenote: HOTSPUR'S DESCENDANTS]
+
+In the Domesday Book Petworth is called Peteorde. It was rated at 1,080
+acres, and possessed a church, a mill worth a sovereign, a river
+containing 1,620 eels, and pannage for 80 hogs. In the time of the
+Confessor the manor was worth _L_18; a few years later the price went down
+to ten shillings. Robert de Montgomerie held Petworth till 1102, when he
+defied the king and lost it. Adeliza, widow of Henry I., having a
+brother Josceline de Louvaine whom she wished to benefit, Petworth was
+given to him. Josceline married Agnes, daughter of William de Percy, the
+descendant of one of the Conqueror's chief friends, and, doing so, took
+his name. In course of time came Harry Hotspur, whose sword, which he
+swung at the Battle of Shrewsbury, is kept at Petworth House. The second
+Earl was his son, also Henry, who fought at Chevy Chase; he was not,
+however, slain there, as the balladmonger says, but at St. Albans.
+Henry, the third Earl, fell at Towton; Henry, the fourth Earl, was
+assassinated at Cock Lodge, Thirsk; Henry, the fifth Earl, led a
+regiment at the Battle of the Spurs; Henry, the sixth Earl, fell in love
+with Anne Boleyn, but had the good sense not to let Henry the Eighth see
+it. Thomas, his brother, was beheaded for treason; Thomas, the seventh
+Earl, took arms against Queen Elizabeth, and was beheaded in Scotland;
+Henry, the eighth Earl, attempted to liberate Mary Queen of Scots, and
+was imprisoned in the Tower, where he slew himself; Henry, the ninth
+Earl, was accused of assisting Guy Fawkes and locked up for fifteen
+years. He was set at liberty only after paying _L_30,000, and promising
+never to go more than thirty miles from Petworth House. This kept him
+out of London.
+
+The last two noble Earls of Northumberland were Algernon, Lord High
+Admiral of England, who married Lady Anna Cecil, and planted an oak in
+the Park (it is still there) to commemorate the union; and Josceline,
+eleventh Earl, who died in 1670, leaving no son. He left, however, a
+daughter, a little Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, who had countless suitors
+and was married three times before she was sixteen. Her third husband
+was Charles Seymour, sixth Duke of Somerset, who became in time the
+father of thirteen children. Of these all died save three girls, and a
+boy, Algernon, who became seventh Duke of Somerset. Through one of the
+daughters, Catherine, who married Sir William Wyndham, the estates fell
+to the present family. The next important Lord of Petworth was George
+O'Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont, the friend of art and
+agriculture, who collected most of the pictures. The present owner is
+the third Baron Leconfield.
+
+[Illustration: _The Rother at Fittleworth._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE EARL AND THE HOUSEMAID]
+
+C. R. Leslie, who painted more than one picture in the Petworth gallery,
+has much to say in his _Autobiographical Recollections_ of its noble
+founder the third Earl, his generosity, courtesy, kindly thoughtfulness,
+and extreme modesty of bearing. One story contains half his biography. I
+give it in Leslie's words. After referring to his Lordship's
+men-servants and their importance in the house, the painter continues:
+"His own dress, in the morning, being very plain, he was sometimes by
+strangers mistaken for one of them. This happened with a maid of one of
+his lady guests, who had not been at Petworth before. She met him,
+crossing the hall, as the bell was ringing for the servants' dinner, and
+said: 'Come, old gentleman, you and I will go to dinner together, for I
+can't find my way in this great house.' He gave her his arm, and led her
+to the room where the other maids were assembled at their table, and
+said: 'You dine here, I don't dine till seven o'clock.'"
+
+[Sidenote: THE PETWORTH PICTURES]
+
+On certain days in the week visitors are allowed to walk through the
+galleries of Petworth House. The parties are shown by a venerable
+servitor into the audit room, a long bare apartment furnished with a
+statue and the heads of stags; and at the stroke of the hour a
+commissionaire appears at the far door and leads the way to the office,
+where a visitors' book is signed. Then the real work of the day begins,
+and for fifty-five minutes one passes from Dutch painters to Italian,
+from English to French: amid boors by Teniers, beauties by Lely,
+landscapes by Turner, carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The commissionaire
+knows them all. The collection is a fine one, but the lighting is bad,
+and the conditions under which it is seen are not favourable to the
+intimate appreciation of good art. One finds one's attention wandering
+too often from the soldier with his little index rattan to the deer on
+the vast lawn that extends from the windows to the lake--the lake that
+Turner painted and fished in. Hobbemas, Vandycks, Murillos--what are
+these when the sun shines and the ceaseless mutations of a herd of deer
+render the middle distance fascinating? Among the more famous pictures
+is a Peg Woffington by Hogarth, not here "dallying and dangerous," but
+demure as a nun; also the "Modern Midnight Conversation" from the same
+hand; three or four bewitching Romneys; a room full of beauties of the
+Court of Queen Anne; Henry VIII by Holbein; a wonderful Claude Lorraine;
+a head of Cervantes attributed to Velasquez; and four views of the
+Thames by Turner. Hazlitt, in his _Sketches of the Picture Galleries of
+England_, says of this collection:--"We wish our readers to go to
+Petworth ... where they will find the coolest grottoes and the finest
+Vandykes in the world."
+
+[Sidenote: A PICTORAL PARK]
+
+Lord Leconfield's park has not the remarkable natural formation of the
+Duke of Norfolk's, nor the superb situation of the Duke of Richmond and
+Gordon's, with its Channel prospects, but it is immense and imposing.
+Also it is unreal: it is like a park in a picture. This effect may be
+largely due to the circumstance that _fetes_ in Petworth Park have been
+more than once painted; but it is due also, I think, to the shape and
+colour of the house, to the lake, to the extent of the lawn, to the
+disposition of the knolls, and to the deer. A scene-painter, bidden to
+depict an English park, would produce (though he had never been out of
+the Strand) something very like Petworth. It is the normal park of the
+average imagination on a large scale.
+
+[Illustration: _Almshouse at Petworth._]
+
+Cobbett wrote thus of Petworth:--"The park is very fine, and consists of
+a parcel of those hills and dells which nature formed here when she was
+in one of her most sportive moods. I have never seen the earth flung
+about in such a wild way as round about Hindhead and Blackdown, and this
+park forms a part of this ground. From an elevated part of it, and,
+indeed, from each of many parts of it, you see all around the country to
+the distance of many miles. From the south-east to the north-west the
+hills are so lofty and so near that they cut the view rather short; but
+for the rest of the circle you can see to a very great distance. It is,
+upon the whole, a most magnificent seat, and the Jews will not be able
+to get it from the _present_ owner, though if he live many years they
+will give even him a _twist_."
+
+[Sidenote: THE YOUNG RAVENS]
+
+On an eminence in the west is a tower (near a clump where ravens build),
+from which the other parks of this wonderful park-district of Sussex may
+be seen: Cowdray to the west, the highest points of Goodwood to the
+south-west, the highest points of Arundel to the south-east, and
+Parham's dark forest more easterly still. Mr. Knox's account of the
+vicissitudes of the Petworth ravens sixty years ago is as interesting as
+any history of equal length on the misfortunes of man. Their sufferings
+at the hands of keepers and schoolboys read like a page of Foxe. The
+final disaster was the spoliation of their nest by a boy, who removed
+all four of the children, or "squabs" as he called them. Mr. Knox, who
+used to come every day to examine them through his glass, was in
+despair, until after much meditation he thought of an expedient. Seeking
+out the boy he persuaded him to give up the one "squab" whose wings had
+not yet been clipped, and this the ornithologist carried to the clump
+and deposited in the ruined nest. The next morning the old birds were to
+be seen, just as of old, and that was their last molestation.
+
+Just under the park on the road to Midhurst is Tillington, a little
+village with a rather ornamental church, which dates from 1807. There is
+nothing to say of Tillington, but I should like to quote a pretty
+sentence from Horsfield's _History of Sussex_ concerning the monuments
+in the church, in a kind of writing of which we have little
+to-day:--"And as the volume, for which this has been written, is likely
+to fall chiefly into the hands of men who are occupied almost solely
+with the cares and business of this life, this slight reference is made
+to the monuments of the dead in order that, should the reader of this
+book find, in the present dearth of honesty, of faithfulness, of
+disinterested valour and of loyalty, an aching want in his spirit for
+such high qualities, let him hence be taught where to go--let him learn
+that, though they are rarely found in the busy haunts of men, they are
+still preserved and have their home around the sanctuary of the altar of
+his God."
+
+[Sidenote: A TREASURY OF ARCHITECTURE]
+
+Petworth should be visited by all young architects; not for the mansion
+(except as an object-lesson, for it is like a London terrace), but for
+the ordinary buildings in the town. It is a paradise of old-fashioned
+architecture. The church is hideous; the new hotel, the "Swan," might be
+at Balham; but the old part of the town is perfect. There is an
+almshouse (which Mr. Griggs has drawn), in which in its palmy days a
+Lady Bountiful might have lived; even the workhouse has charms--it is
+the only pretty workhouse I remember: with the exception, perhaps, of
+Battle, but that is, however, self-conscious.
+
+Petworth has known, at any rate, one poet. In the churchyard was once
+this epitaph, now perhaps obliterated, from a husband's hand:--
+
+
+     "She was! She was! She was, what?
+     She was all that a woman should be, she was that."
+
+
+[Sidenote: NOAH MANN]
+
+In a book which takes account of Sussex men and women of the past, it is
+hard to keep long from cricket. To the north of Petworth, whither we now
+turn, is Northchapel, where was born and died one of the great men of
+the Hambledon Club, Noah Mann, who once made ten runs from one hit, and
+whose son was named Horace, after the cricketing baronet of the same
+name, by special permission. "Sir Horace, by this simple act of
+graceful humanity, hooked for life the heart of poor Noah Mann," says
+Nyren; "and in this world of hatred and contention, the love even of a
+dog is worth living for."
+
+[Illustration: _Petworth Churchyard._]
+
+[Sidenote: GEORGE LEAR'S STRATEGY]
+
+This is Nyren's account of Noah Mann:
+
+"He was from Sussex, and lived at Northchapel, not far from Petworth. He
+kept an inn there, and used to come a distance of at least twenty miles
+every Tuesday to practise. He was a fellow of extraordinary activity,
+and could perform clever feats of agility on horseback. For instance,
+when he has been seen in the distance coming up the ground, one or more
+of his companions would throw down handkerchiefs, and these he would
+collect, stooping from his horse while it was going at full speed. He
+was a fine batter, a fine field, and the swiftest runner I ever
+remember: indeed, such was his fame for speed, that whenever there was a
+match going forward, we were sure to hear of one being made for Mann to
+run against some noted competitor; and such would come from the whole
+country round. Upon these occasions he used to tell his friends, 'If,
+when we are half-way, you see me alongside of my man, you may always bet
+your money upon me, for I am sure to win.' And I never saw him beaten.
+He was a most valuable fellow in the field; for besides being very sure
+of the ball, his activity was so extraordinary that he would dart all
+over the ground like lightning. In those days of fast bowling, they
+would put a man behind the long-stop, that he might cover both long-stop
+and slip; the man always selected for this post was Noah. Now and then
+little George Lear (whom I have already described as being so fine a
+long-stop), would give Noah the wink to be on his guard, who would
+gather close behind him: then George would make a slip on purpose, and
+let the ball go by, when, in an instant, Noah would have it up, and into
+the wicket-keeper's hands, and the man was put out. This I have seen
+done many times, and this nothing but the most accomplished skill in
+fielding could have achieved....
+
+"At a match of the Hambledon Club against All England, the club had to
+go in to get the runs, and there was a long number of them. It became
+quite apparent that the game would be closely fought. Mann kept on
+worrying old Nyren to let him go in, and although he became quite
+indignant at his constant refusal, our General knew what he was about in
+keeping him back. At length, when the last but one was out, he sent Mann
+in, and there were then ten runs to get. The sensation now all over the
+ground was greater than anything of the kind I ever witnessed before or
+since. All knew the state of the game, and many thousands were hanging
+upon this narrow point. There was Sir Horace Mann, walking about outside
+the ground, cutting down the daisies with his stick--a habit with him
+when he was agitated; the old farmers leaning forward upon their tall
+old staves, and the whole multitude perfectly still. After Noah had had
+one or two balls, Lumpy tossed one a little too far, when our fellow got
+in, and hit it out in his grand style. Six of the ten were gained.
+Never shall I forget the roar that followed this hit. Then there was a
+dead stand for some time, and no runs were made; ultimately, however, he
+gained them all, and won the game. After he was out, he upbraided Nyren
+for not putting him in earlier. 'If you had let me go in an hour ago'
+(said he), 'I would have served them in the same way.' But the old
+tactician was right, for he knew Noah to be a man of such nerve and
+self-possession, that the thought of so much depending upon him would
+not have the paralysing effect that it would upon many others. He was
+sure of him, and Noah afterwards felt the compliment. Mann was short in
+stature, and, when stripped, as swarthy as a gipsy. He was all muscle,
+with no incumbrance whatever of flesh; remarkably broad in the chest,
+with large hips and spider legs; he had not an ounce of flesh about him,
+but it was where it ought to be. He always played without his hat (the
+sun could not affect _his_ complexion), and he took a liking to me as a
+boy, because I did the same."
+
+[Sidenote: A LURGASHALL SATIRIST]
+
+Lurgashall, on the road to Northchapel, is a pleasant village, with a
+green, and a church unique among Sussex churches by virtue of a curious
+wooden gallery or cloister, said to have been built as a shelter for
+parishioners from a distance, who would eat their nuncheon there. The
+church, which has distinct Saxon remains, once had for rector the
+satirical James Bramston, author of "The Art of Politics" and "The Man
+of Taste," two admirable poems in the manner of Pope. This is his
+unimpeachable advice to public speakers:--
+
+
+     Those who would captivate the well-bred throng,
+     Should not too often speak, nor speak too long:
+     Church, nor Church Matters ever turn to Sport,
+     Nor make _St. Stephen's Chappell, Dover-Court_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BIGNOR
+
+     Burton and the sparrowhawk--James Broadbridge--The quaintest of
+     grocer's shops--A transformation scene--The Roman
+     pavement--Charlotte Smith the sonneteer--Parson Dorset's
+     advice--Humility at West Burton--Bury's Amazons.
+
+
+Two miles due south from Petworth is Burton Park, a modest sandy
+pleasaunce, with some beautiful deer, an ugly house, and a church for
+the waistcoat pocket, which some American relic hunter will assuredly
+carry off unless it is properly chained.
+
+Mr. Knox has an interesting anecdote of a sparrowhawk at Burton. "In
+May, 1844," he writes, "I received from Burton Park an adult male
+sparrowhawk in full breeding plumage, which had killed itself, or rather
+met its death, in a singular manner. The gardener was watering plants in
+the greenhouse, the door being open, when a blackbird dashed in
+suddenly, taking refuge between his legs, and at the same moment the
+glass roof above his head was broken with a loud crash, and a hawk fell
+dead at his feet. The force of the swoop was so great that for a moment
+he imagined a stone hurled from a distance to have been the cause of the
+fracture."
+
+At Duncton, the neighbouring village, under the hill, James Broadbridge
+was born in 1796--James Broadbridge, who was considered the best
+all-round cricketer in England in his day. He had a curious hit to
+square-leg between the wicket and himself, and he was the first of whom
+it was said that he could do anything with the ball except make it
+speak. In order to get practice with worthy players he would walk from
+Duncton to Brighton, just as Lambert would walk from Reigate to London,
+or Noah Mann ride to Hambledon from Petworth. Jim Broadbridge's first
+great match was in 1815, for Sussex against the Epsom Club, including
+Lambert and Lord Frederick Beauclerk, for a Thousand Guineas.
+Broadbridge, after his wont, walked from Duncton to Brighton in the
+morning, and he looked so much like a farmer and so little like a
+cricketer that there was some opposition to his playing. But he bowled
+out three and caught one and Sussex won the money.
+
+Above Duncton rises Duncton Down, which is eight hundred and
+thirty-seven feet high, one of our mountains. But we are not to climb it
+just now, having business in the weald some four miles away to the east,
+past Barlavington and Sutton, at Bignor.
+
+[Sidenote: THE OLDEST GROCER'S SHOP]
+
+Admirers of yew trees should make a point of visiting Bignor churchyard.
+The village has also what is probably the quaintest grocer's shop in
+England; certainly the completest contrast that imagination could devise
+to the modern grocer's shop of the town, plate-glassed, illumined and
+stored to repletion. It is close to the yew-shadowed church, and is
+gained by a flight of steps. I should not have noticed it as a shop at
+all, but rather as a very curious survival of a kindly and attractive
+form of architecture, had not a boy, when asked the way to the Roman
+pavement, which is Bignor's glory, mentioned "the grocer's" as one of
+the landmarks. One's connotation of "grocer" excluding diamond panes,
+oak timbers, difficult steps, and reverend antiquity, I was like to lose
+the way in earnest, had not a customer emerged opportunely from the
+crazy doorway with a basket of goods. It was natural for the boy, whose
+pennies had gone in oranges and sweets, to lay the emphasis on the
+grocery; but the house externally is the only one of its kind within
+miles.
+
+[Sidenote: A ROMAN VILLA]
+
+In some respects there is no more interesting spot in Sussex than the
+mangold field on Mr. Tupper's farm that contains the Roman pavements.
+Approaching this scene of alien treasure one observes nothing but the
+mangolds; here and there a rough shed as if for cattle; and Mr. Tupper,
+the grandson of the discoverer of the mosaics, at work with his hoe.
+This he lays on one side on the arrival of a visitor, taking in his hand
+instead a large key. So far, we are in Sussex pure and simple; mangolds
+all around, cattle sheds in front, a Sussex farmer for a companion, the
+sky of Sussex over all, and the twentieth century in her nonage. Mr.
+Tupper turns the key, throws open the creaking door--and nearly two
+thousand years roll away. We are no longer in Sussex but in the province
+of the Regni; no longer at Bignor but Ad Decimum, or ten miles from
+Regnum (or Chichester) on Stane Street, the direct road to Londinum, in
+the residence of a Roman Colonial governor of immense wealth, probably
+supreme in command of the province.
+
+The fragments of pavement that have been preserved are mere indications
+of the splendour and extent of the building, which must have covered
+some acres--a welcome and imposing sight as one descended Bignor Hill by
+Stane Street, with its white walls and columns rising from the dark
+weald. The pavement in the first shed which Mr. Tupper unlocks has the
+figure of Ganymede in one of its circular compartments; and here the
+hot-air pipes, by which the villa was heated, may be seen where the
+floor has given way. A head of Winter in another of the sheds is very
+fine; but it is rather for what these relics stand for, than any
+intrinsic beauty, that they are interesting. They are perfect symbols of
+a power that has passed away. Nothing else so brings back the Roman
+occupation of Sussex, when on still nights the clanking of armour in the
+camp on the hill-top could be heard by the trembling Briton in the Weald
+beneath; or by day the ordered sounds of marching would smite upon his
+ears, and, looking fearfully upwards, he would see a steady file of
+warriors descending the slope. I never see a Sussex hill crowned by a
+camp, as at Wolstonbury, without seeing also in imagination a flash of
+steel. Perhaps one never realises the new terror which the Romans must
+have brought into the life of the Sussex peasant--a terror which utterly
+changed the Downs from ramparts of peace into coigns of minatory
+advantage, and transformed the gaze of security, with which their grassy
+contours had once been contemplated, into anxious glances of dismay and
+trepidation--one never so realises this terror as when one descends
+Ditchling Beacon by the sunken path which the Romans dug to allow a
+string of soldiers to drop unperceived into the Weald below. That
+semi-subterranean passage and the Bignor pavements are to me the most
+vivid tokens of the Roman rule that England possesses.
+
+[Sidenote: PARSON DORSET]
+
+Charlotte Smith, the sonneteer and novelist, was the daughter of
+Nicholas Turner, of Bignor Park, which contains, I think, the plainest
+house I ever saw in the country. Charlotte Smith, who was all her life
+very true to Sussex both in her work and in her homes--she was at school
+at Chichester, and lived at Woolbeding and Brighton--was born in 1749. A
+century ago her name was as well known as that of Mrs. Hemans was later.
+To-day it is unknown, and her poems and novels are unread, nor will
+they, I fear, be re-discovered. Her sister, Catherine Turner, afterwards
+Mrs. Dorset, was the author of _The Peacock at Home_, a very popular
+book for children at the beginning of the last century, suggested by
+Roscoe's _Butterfly's Ball_. Mrs. Dorset, by the way, married a son of
+the vicar of Walberton and Burlington, whose curious head-dress gave to
+an odd-looking tree on Bury hill the name of Parson Dorset's wig--for
+the parson was known by his eccentricities far from home. The old story
+of advice to a flock: "Do as I say, not as I do," is told also of him.
+
+[Sidenote: VILLAGE HUMILITY]
+
+The little village of West Burton, east of Bignor, is associated in my
+mind with an expression of the truest humility. A kindly villager had
+given me a glass of water, and I unfolded my map and spread it on her
+garden wall to consult while I drank. "Why," she said, "you don't mean
+to say a little place like West Burton is marked on a map." This is the
+very antipodes of the ordinary provincial pride, which would have the
+world's axis project from the ground hard by the village pump. But pride
+of place is not, I think, a Sussex characteristic.
+
+Bury, the next hamlet in the east, under the hills, has curious cricket
+traditions. In June, 1796, the married women of Bury beat the single
+women by 80 runs, and thereupon, uniting forces, challenged any team of
+women in the county. Not only did the women of Bury shine at cricket,
+but in a Sussex paper for 1791 I find an account of two of Bury's
+daughters assuming the names of Big Ben and Mendoza and engaging in a
+hardly contested prize fight before a large gathering. Big Ben won.
+
+[Illustration: _The Causeway, Horsham._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HORSHAM
+
+     Horsham stone--Horsham and history--Pressing to death--Juvenile
+     hostility to statues--Horsham's love of pleasure--Percy Bysshe
+     Shelley's boyhood--a letter of invitation--Sedition in Sussex--a
+     Slinfold epitaph--Rudgwick's cricket poet--Warnham pond--Stane
+     Street--Cobbett at Billingshurst--The new Christ's Hospital.
+
+
+Horsham is the capital of West Sussex: a busy agricultural town with
+horse dealers in its streets, a core of old houses, and too many that
+are new. There is in England no more peaceful and prosperous row of
+venerable homes than the Causeway, joining Carfax and the church, with
+its pollarded limes and chestnuts in line on the pavement's edge, its
+graceful gables, jutting eaves, and glimpses of green gardens through
+the doors and windows. The sweetest part of Horsham is there. Elsewhere
+the town bustles. (I should, however, mention the very picturesque
+house--now cottages--on the left of the road as one leaves the station:
+as fine a mass of timbers, gables, and oblique lines as one could wish,
+making an effect such as time alone can give. The days of such relics
+are numbered.)
+
+[Sidenote: HORSHAM STONE]
+
+Horsham not only has beautiful old houses of its own, but it has been
+the cause of beautiful old houses all over the county; since nothing so
+adds to the charm of a building as a roof of Horsham stone, those large
+grey flat slabs on which the weather works like a great artist in
+harmonies of moss, lichen, and stain. No roofing so combines dignity and
+homeliness, and no roofing except possibly thatch (which, however, is
+short-lived) so surely passes into the landscape. But Horsham stone is
+no longer used. It is to be obtained for a new house only by the
+demolition of an old; and few new houses have rafters sufficiently
+stable to bear so great a weight. Our ancestors built for posterity: we
+build for ourselves. Our ancestors used Sussex oak where we use fir.
+
+Not only is Horsham stone on the roofs of the neighbourhood: it is also
+on the paths, so that one may step from flag to flag for miles, dryshod,
+or at least without mud.
+
+Horsham's place in history is unimportant: but indirectly it played its
+part in the fourteenth century, by supplying the War Office of that era
+with bolts for cross bows, excellent for slaying Scots and Frenchmen.
+The town was famous also for its horseshoes. In the days of Cromwell we
+find Horsham to have been principally Royalist; one engagement with
+Parliamentarians is recorded in which it lost three warriors to
+Cromwell's one. In the reign of William III. a young man claiming to be
+the Duke of Monmouth, and travelling with a little court who addressed
+him as "Your Grace," turned the heads of the women in many an English
+town--his good looks convincing them at once, as the chronicler says,
+that he was the true prince. Justices sitting at Horsham, however,
+having less susceptibility to the testimony of handsome features, found
+him to be the son of an innkeeper named Savage, and imprisoned him as a
+vagrant and swindler.
+
+[Sidenote: PRESSING TO DEATH]
+
+Horsham was the last place in which pressing to death was practised. The
+year was 1735, and the victim a man unknown, who on being charged with
+murder and robbery refused to speak. Witnesses having been called to
+prove him no mute, this old and horrible sentence, proper (as the law
+considered) to his offence and obstinacy, was passed upon him. The
+executioner, the story goes, while conveying the body in a wheelbarrow
+to burial, turned it out in the roadway at the place where the King's
+Head now stands, and then putting it in again, passed on. Not long
+afterwards he fell dead at this spot.
+
+The church of St. Mary, which rises majestically at the end of the
+Causeway, has a slender shingled spire that reaches a great height--not
+altogether, however, without indecision. There is probably an altitude
+beyond which shingles are a mistake: they are better suited to the more
+modest spire of the small village. The church is remarkable also for
+length of roof (well covered with Horsham stone), and it is altogether a
+singularly commanding structure. Within is an imposing plainness. The
+stone effigy of a knight in armour reclines just to the south of the
+altar: son of a branch of the Braose family--of Chesworth, hard by, now
+in ruins--of whose parent stock we shall hear more when we reach
+Bramber. The knight, Thomas, Lord Braose, died in 1395. The youth of
+Horsham, hostile invincibly, like all boys, to the stone nose, have
+reduced that feature to the level of the face; or was it the work of the
+Puritans, who are known to have shared in the nasal objection? South of
+the churchyard is the river, from the banks of which the church would
+seem to be all Horsham, so effectually is the town behind it blotted out
+by its broad back. On the edge of the churchyard is perhaps the smallest
+house in Sussex: certainly the smallest to combine Gothic windows with
+the sale of ginger-beer.
+
+[Sidenote: A SCHOOL OF CHAMPIONS]
+
+Horsham seems always to have been fond of pleasure. Within iron railings
+in the Carfax, in a trim little enclosure of turf and geraniums, is the
+ancient iron ring used in the bull-baiting which the inhabitants
+indulged in and loved until as recently as 1814. That the town is still
+disposed to entertainment, although of a quieter kind, its walls
+testify; for the hoardings are covered with the promise of circus or
+conjuror, minstrels or athletic sports, drama or lecture. In July, when
+I was there last, Horsham was anticipating a _fete_, in which a mock
+bull-fight and a battle of confetti were mere details; while it was
+actually in the throes of a fair. The booths filled an open space to the
+west of the town known as the Jew's Meadow, and among the attractions
+was Professor Adams with his "school of undefeated champions." The
+plural is in the grand manner, giving the lie to Cashel Byron's pathetic
+plaint:--
+
+
+     It is a lonely thing to be a champion.
+
+
+Avoiding Professor Adams, and walking due west, one comes after a couple
+of miles to Broadbridge Heath, where is Field Place, the birthplace of
+the greatest of Sussex poets, and perhaps the greatest of the county's
+sons--Percy Bysshe Shelley. The author of _Adonais_ was born in a little
+bedroom with a south aspect on August 4, 1792. His father's mother,
+_nee_ Michell, was the daughter of a late vicar of Horsham and member of
+an old Sussex family; another Horsham cleric, the Rev. Thomas Edwards,
+gave the boy his first lessons. Field Place is still very much what it
+was in Shelley's early days--the only days it was a home to him. It
+stands low, in a situation darkened by the surrounding trees, a rambling
+house neither as old as one would wish for aesthetic reasons nor as new
+as comfort might dictate. There is no view. In the garden one may in
+fancy see again the little boy, like all poetic children, "deep in his
+unknown day's employ." Indeed, like all children, might be said, for is
+not every child a poet for a little while? In the _Life of Shelley_ by
+his cousin Thomas Medwin is printed the following letter to a friend at
+Horsham, written when he was nine, which I quote not for any particular
+intrinsic merit, but because it helps to bring him before us in his
+Field Place days, of which too little is known:--
+
+
+                                            "_Monday, July 18, 1803._
+                               "MISS KATE,
+                                     "HORSHAM,
+                                         "SUSSEX.
+
+"DEAR KATE,--We have proposed a day at the pond next Wednesday, and if
+you will come to-morrow morning I would be much obliged to you, and if
+you could any how bring Tom over to stay all the night, I would thank
+you. We are to have a cold dinner over at the pond, and come home to eat
+a bit of roast chicken and peas at about nine o'clock. Mama depends upon
+your bringing Tom over to-morrow, and if you don't we shall be very much
+disappointed. Tell the bearer not to forget to bring me a fairing, which
+is some ginger-bread, sweetmeat, hunting-nuts, and a pocket-book. Now I
+end.
+
+                               "I am not
+                                    "Your obedient servant,
+                                           "P. B. SHELLEY."
+
+
+[Sidenote: SHELLEY IN SUSSEX]
+
+We are proud to call Shelley the Sussex poet, but he wrote no Sussex
+poems, and a singularly uncongenial father (for the cursing of whom and
+the King the boy was famous at Eton) made him glad to avoid the county
+when he was older. It was, however, to a Sussex lady, Miss Hitchener of
+Hurstpierpoint, that Shelley, when in Ireland in 1812, forwarded the box
+of inflammatory matter which the Custom House officers
+confiscated--copies of his pamphlet on Ireland and his "Declaration of
+Rights" broadside, which Miss Hitchener was to distribute among Sussex
+farmers who would display them on their walls. These were the same
+documents that Shelley used to put in bottles and throw out to sea,
+greatly to the perplexity of the spectators and not a little to the
+annoyance of the Government. Miss Hitchener, as well as the
+revolutionary, was kept under surveillance, as we learn from the letter
+from the Postmaster-General of the day, Lord Chichester:--"I return the
+pamphlet declaration. The writer of the first is son of Mr. Shelley,
+member for the Rape of Bramber, and is by all accounts a most
+extraordinary man. I hear he has married a servant, or some person of
+very low birth; he has been in Ireland for some time, and I heard of his
+speaking at the Catholic Convention. Miss Hitchener, of Hurstpierpoint,
+keeps a School there, and is well spoken of; her Father keeps a Publick
+House in the Neighbourhood, he was originally a Smuggler and changed his
+name from Yorke to Hitchener before he took the Public House. I shall
+have a watch upon the daughter and discover whether there is any
+Connection between her and Shelley."
+
+[Sidenote: "THE SUSSEX MUSE"]
+
+There Shelley's connection with Sussex may be said to end. Yet a poet,
+whether he will or no, is shaped by his early surroundings. In some
+verses by Mr. C. W. Dalmon called "The Sussex Muse," I find the
+influence of Shelley's surroundings on his mind happily recorded:--
+
+
+     "When Shelley's soul was carried through the air
+     Toward the manor house where he was born,
+       I danced along the avenue at Denne,
+     And praised the grace of Heaven, and the morn
+       Which numbered with the sons of Sussex men
+                 A genius so rare!
+     So high an honour and so dear a birth,
+       That, though the Horsham folk may little care
+       To laud the favour of his birthplace there,
+     My name is bless'd for it throughout the earth.
+
+     I taught the child to love, and dream, and sing
+     Of witch, hobgoblin, folk and flower lore;
+       And often led him by the hand away
+     Into St. Leonard's Forest, where of yore
+       The hermit fought the dragon--to this day,
+             The children, ev'ry Spring,
+     Find lilies of the valley blowing where
+       The fights took place. Alas! they quickly drove
+       My darling from my bosom and my love,
+     And snatched my crown of laurel from his hair."
+
+
+[Illustration: _Cottages at Slinfold._]
+
+[Sidenote: SLINFOLD]
+
+Two miles south-west of Field Place, by a footpath which takes us beside
+the Arun, here a narrow stream, and a deserted water mill, we come to
+the churchyard of Slinfold, a little quiet village with a church of
+almost suburban solidity and complete want of Sussex feeling. James
+Dallaway, the historian of Western Sussex, was rector here from 1803 to
+1834. He lived, however, at Leatherhead, Slinfold being a sinecure. A
+Slinfold epitaph on an infant views bereavement with more philosophy
+than is usual: in conclusion calling upon Patience thus to comfort the
+parents:
+
+
+     Teach them to praise that God with grateful mind
+     For babes that yet may come, for one still left behind.
+
+
+A quarter of a mile west is Stane Street, striking London-wards from
+Billingshurst, and we may follow it for a while on our way to Rudgwick,
+near the county's border. We leave the Roman road (which once ran as
+straight as might be as far as Billingsgate, but is now diverted and
+lost in many spots) at the drive to Dedisham, on the left, and thus save
+a considerable corner. Dedisham, in its hollow, is an ancient
+agricultural settlement: a farm and feudatory cottages in perfect
+completeness, an isolated self-sufficing community, lacking nothing--not
+even the yellow ferret in the cage. The footpath beyond the homestead
+crosses a field where we find the Arun once again--here a stream winding
+between steep banks, sure home of kingfisher and water-rats.
+
+[Sidenote: RUDGWICK]
+
+Rudgwick, which is three miles farther west along the hard high road, is
+a small village on a hill, with the most comfortable looking
+church-tower in Sussex hiding behind the inn and the general shop. In
+the churchyard lies a Frusannah--a name new to me.
+
+Rudgwick was the birthplace, in 1717, of Reynell Cotton, destined to be
+the author of the best song in praise of cricket. He entered Winchester
+College in 1730, took orders and became master of Hyde Abbey school in
+the same city, and died in 1779. Nyren prints his song in full. This is
+the heart of it:--
+
+
+     The wickets are pitch'd now, and measur'd the ground,
+     Then they form a large ring, and stand gazing around,
+     Since AJAX fought HECTOR, in sight of all TROY,
+     No contest was seen with such fear and such joy.
+
+     Ye bowlers, take heed, to my precepts attend,
+     On you the whole fate of the game must depend;
+     Spare your vigour at first, nor exert all your strength,
+     But measure each step, and be sure pitch a length.
+
+     Ye fieldsmen, look sharp, lest your pains ye beguile;
+     Move close, like an army, in rank and in file,
+     When the ball is return'd, back it sure, for I trow
+     Whole states have been ruin'd by one overthrow.
+
+     Ye strikers, observe when the foe shall draw nigh,
+     Mark the bowler advancing with vigilant eye:
+     Your skill all depends upon distance and sight,
+     Stand firm to your scratch, let your bat be upright.
+
+
+Further west is Loxwood, on the edge of a little-known tract of country,
+untroubled by railways, the most unfamiliar village in which is perhaps
+Plaistow. Plaistow is on the road to nowhere and has not its equal for
+quietude in England. It is a dependency of Kirdford, whence comes the
+Petworth marble which we see in many Sussex churches. Shillinglee Park,
+the seat of the Earl of Winterton, is hard by.
+
+From these remote parts one may return to Horsham by way of Warnham, on
+whose pond Shelley as a boy used to sail his little boat, and where
+perhaps he gained that love of navigation which never left him and
+brought about his death. Warnham, always a cricketing village, until
+lately supplied the Sussex eleven with dashing Lucases; but it does so
+no more.
+
+[Sidenote: STANE STREET]
+
+Before passing to the east of Horsham, something ought to be said of one
+at least of the villages of the south-west, namely, Billingshurst, on
+Stane Street, once an important station between Regnum and Londinum, or
+Chichester and London, as we should now say. It has been conjectured
+that Stane Street (which we first saw at Chichester under the name of
+East Street, and again as it descended Bignor hill in the guise of a
+bostel) was constructed by Belinus, a Roman engineer, who gave to the
+woods through which he had to cut his way in this part of Sussex the
+name, Billingshurst, and to the gate by which London was entered,
+Billingsgate.
+
+Billingshurst's place in literature was made by William Cobbett, for it
+was here that he met the boy in a smock frock who recalled to his mind
+so many of his deeds of Quixotry. The incident is described in the
+_Rural Rides_:--
+
+[Sidenote: COBBETT AND THE LITTLE CHAP]
+
+"This village is seven miles from Horsham, and I got here to breakfast
+about seven o'clock. A very pretty village, and a very nice breakfast,
+in a very neat little parlour of a very decent public-house. The
+landlady sent her son to get me some cream, and he was just such a chap
+as I was at his age, and dressed just in the same sort of way, his main
+garment being a blue smock-frock, faded from wear, and mended with
+pieces of _new_ stuff, and, of course, not faded. The sight of this
+smock-frock brought to my recollection many things very dear to me. This
+boy will, I daresay, perform his part at Billingshurst, or at some place
+not far from it. If accident had not taken me from a similar scene, how
+many villains and fools, who have been well teased and tormented, would
+have slept in peace at night, and have fearlessly swaggered about by
+day!
+
+[Illustration: _Rudgwick._]
+
+"When I look at this little chap--at his smock-frock, his nailed shoes,
+and his clean, plain, coarse shirt, I ask myself, will anything, I
+wonder, ever send this chap across the ocean to tackle the base,
+corrupt, perjured Republican Judges of Pennsylvania? Will this little
+lively, but, at the same time, simple boy, ever become the terror of
+villains and hypocrites across the Atlantic? What a chain of strange
+circumstances there must be to lead this boy to thwart a miscreant
+tyrant like M'keen, the Chief Justice, and afterwards Governor, of
+Pennsylvania, and to expose the corruptions of the band of rascals,
+called a 'Senate and a House of Representatives,' at Harrisburgh, in
+that state!"
+
+[Sidenote: A VILLAGE DISPUTE]
+
+Billingshurst church has an interesting ceiling, an early brass (to
+Thomas and Elizabeth Bartlet), and the record of one of those disputes
+over pews which add salt to village life and now and then, as we saw at
+Littlehampton, lead to real trouble. The verger (if he be the same) will
+tell the story, the best part of which describes the race which was held
+every Sunday for certain seats in the chancel, and the tactical
+"packing" of the same by the winning party. In the not very remote past
+a noble carved chair used to be placed in one of the galleries for the
+schoolmaster, and there would he sit during service surrounded by his
+boys.
+
+One returns to Horsham from Billingshurst through Itchingfield, where
+the new Christ's Hospital has been built in the midst of green fields: a
+glaring red-brick settlement which the fastidiously urban ghost of
+Charles Lamb can now surely never visit. "Lamb's House," however, is the
+name of one of the buildings; and Time the Healer, who can do all
+things, may mellow the new school into Elian congeniality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ST. LEONARD'S FOREST
+
+     Recollections of the Forest--Leonardslee--Michael Drayton and the
+     iron country--Thomas Fuller on great guns--The serpent of St.
+     Leonard's Forest--The Headless Horseman--Sussex and nightingales.
+
+
+To the east of Horsham spreads St. Leonard's Forest, that vast tract of
+moor and preserve which, merging into Tilgate Forest, Balcombe Forest,
+and Worth Forest, extends a large part of the way to East Grinstead.
+
+Only on foot can we really explore this territory; and a compass as well
+as a good map is needed if one is to walk with any decision, for there
+are many conflicting tracks, and many points whence no broad outlook is
+possible. Remembering old days in St. Leonard's Forest, I recall, in
+general, the odoriferous damp open spaces of long grass, suddenly
+lighted upon, over which silver-washed fritillaries flutter; and, in
+particular, a deserted farm, in whose orchard (it must have been late
+June) was a spreading tree of white-heart cherries in full bearing. One
+may easily, even a countryman, I take it, live to a great age and never
+have the chance of climbing into a white-heart cherry tree and eating
+one's fill. Certainly I have never done it since; but that day gave me
+an understanding of blackbirds' temptations that is still stronger than
+the desire to pull a trigger. The reader must not imagine that St.
+Leonard's Forest is rich in deserted farms with attractive orchards. I
+have found no other, and indeed it is notably a place in which the
+explorer should be accompanied by provisions.
+
+[Sidenote: LEONARDSLEE]
+
+To take train to Faygate and walk from that spot is the simplest way,
+although more interesting is it perhaps to come to Faygate at the end of
+the day, and, gaining permission to climb the Beacon Tower on the hill,
+in the Holmbush estate, retrace one's steps in vision from its summit.
+In this case one would walk from Horsham to Lower Beeding, then strike
+north over Plummer's Plain. This route leads by Coolhurst and through
+Manning Heath, just beyond which, by following the south, that runs for
+a mile, one could see Nuthurst. Lower Beeding is not in itself
+interesting; but close at hand is Leonardslee, the seat of Sir Edmund
+Loder, which is one of the most satisfying estates in the county. North
+and south runs a deep ravine, on the one side richly wooded, and on the
+other, the west, planted with all acclimatisable varieties of Alpine
+plants and flowering shrubs. The chain of ponds at the bottom of the
+ravine forms one of the principal sources of the Adur. In an enclosure
+among the woods the kangaroo has been acclimatised; and beavers are
+given all law.
+
+North of Plummer's Plain, in a hollow, are two immense ponds, Hammer
+Pond and Hawkin's Pond, our first reminder that we are in the old iron
+country. St. Leonard's Forest, and all the forests on this the forest
+ridge of Sussex, were of course maintained to supply wood with which to
+feed the furnaces of the iron masters--just as the overflow of these
+ponds was trained to move the machinery of the hammers for the breaking
+of the iron stone. The enormous consumption of wood in the iron
+foundries was a calamity seriously viewed by many observers, among them
+Michael Drayton, of the _Poly Olbion_, who was, however, distressed less
+as a political economist than as the friend of the wood nymphs driven by
+the encroaching and devastating foundrymen from their native sanctuaries
+to the inhospitable Downs. Thus he writes, illustrating Lamb's criticism
+of him that in this work he "has animated hills and streams with life
+and passion above the dreams of old mythology":--
+
+
+                               The daughters of the Weald
+     (That in their heavy breasts had long their griefs concealed),
+     Foreseeing their decay each hour so fast come on,
+     Under the axe's stroke, fetched many a grievous groan.
+     When as the anvil's weight, and hammer's dreadful sound,
+     Even rent the hollow woods and shook the queachy ground;
+     So that the trembling nymphs, oppressed through ghastly fear,
+     Ran madding to the downs, with loose dishevelled hair.
+     The Sylvans that about the neighbouring woods did dwell,
+     Both in the tufty frith and in the mossy fell,
+     Forsook their gloomy bowers, and wandered far abroad,
+     Expelled their quiet seats, and place of their abode,
+     When labouring carts they saw to hold their daily trade,
+     Where they in summer wont to sport them in the shade.
+     "Could we," say they, "suppose that any would us cherish
+     Which suffer every day the holiest things to perish?
+     Or to our daily want to minister supply?
+     These iron times breed none that mind posterity.
+     'Tis but in vain to tell what we before have been,
+     Or changes of the world that we in time have seen;
+     When, now devising how to spend our wealth with waste,
+     We to the savage swine let fall our larding mast,
+     But now, alas! ourselves we have not to sustain,
+     Nor can our tops suffice to shield our roots from rain.
+     Jove's oak, the warlike ash, veined elm, the softer beech,
+     Short hazel, maple plain, light asp, the bending wych,
+     Tough holly, and smooth birch, must altogether burn;
+     What should the builder serve, supplies the forger's turn,
+     When under public good, base private gain takes hold,
+     And we, poor woful woods, to ruin lastly sold."
+
+
+[Sidenote: GREAT GUNS]
+
+We shall learn later more of this old Sussex industry, but here, in the
+heart of St. Leonard's Forest, I might quote also what another old
+author, with less invention, says of it. Under the heading of Sussex
+manufactures, Thomas Fuller writes, in the _Worthies_, of great guns:--
+
+    "It is almost incredible how many are made of the Iron in this
+    County. Count _Gondomer_ well knew their goodness, when of King
+    James he so often begg'd the boon to transport them. A Monke of
+    Mentz (some three hundred years since) is generally reputed the
+    first Founder of them. Surely _ingenuity_ may seem _transpos'd_, and
+    to have _cross'd her hands_, when about the same time a Souldier
+    found out Printing; and it is questionable which of the two
+    Inventions hath done more good, or more harm. As for Guns, it cannot
+    be denied, that though most behold them as _Instruments of cruelty_;
+    partly, because subjecting _valour_ to _chance_; partly, because
+    _Guns give no quarter_ (which the Sword sometimes doth); yet it will
+    appear that, since their invention, Victory hath not stood so long a
+    Neuter, and hath been determined with the loss of fewer lives. Yet
+    do I not believe what Souldiers commonly say, 'that _he was curs'd
+    in his Mother's belly, who is kill'd with a Cannon_,' seeing many
+    prime persons have been slain thereby."
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX IRON WORKS]
+
+Cannon were not, of course, the only articles which the old Sussex
+ironmasters contrived. The old railings around St. Paul's were cast in
+Sussex; and iron fire-backs were turned out in great numbers. These are
+still to be seen in a few of the older Sussex cottages in their original
+position. Most curiosity dealers in the country have a few fire-backs on
+sale. Iron tombstones one meets with too in a few of the churches and
+churchyards in the iron district. There are several at Wadhurst, for
+example.
+
+[Sidenote: THE "LAND SERPENT"]
+
+I have seen grass snakes in plenty in St. Leonard's Forest, and was once
+there with a botanist who, the day being fine, killed a particularly
+beautiful one; but the Forest is no longer famous, as once it was, for
+really alarming reptiles. The year 1614 was the time. A rambler in the
+neighbourhood, in August of that year, ran the risk of meeting something
+worth running away from; just as John Steel, Christopher Holder, and a
+widow woman did. Their story may be read in the Harleian Miscellany.
+_True and Wonderful_ is the title of the narrative, _A Discourse
+relating a strange and monstrous Serpent (or Dragon) lately discovered,
+and yet living, to the great Annoyance and divers Slaughters both of Men
+and Cattell, by his strong and violent Poyson: In Sussex, two Miles
+from Horsam, in a Woode called St. Leonard's Forrest, and thirtie Miles
+from London, this present Month of August, 1614. With the true
+Generation of Serpents._ The discourse runs thus:--"In Sussex, there is
+a pretty market-towne, called Horsam, neare unto it a forrest, called
+St. Leonard's Forrest, and there, in a vast and unfrequented place,
+heathie, vaultie, full of unwholesome shades, and over-growne hollowes,
+where this serpent is thought to be bred; but, wheresoever bred,
+certaine and too true it is, that there it yet lives. Within three or
+four miles compasse, are its usual haunts, oftentimes at a place called
+Faygate, and it hath been seene within halfe a mile of Horsam; a wonder,
+no doubt, most terrible and noisome to the inhabitants thereabouts.
+There is always in his tracke or path left a glutinous and slimie matter
+(as by a small similitude we may perceive in a snaile's) which is very
+corrupt and offensive to the scent; insomuch that they perceive the air
+to be putrified withall, which must needes be very dangerous. For though
+the corruption of it cannot strike the outward part of a man, unless
+heated into his blood; yet by receiving it in at any of our breathing
+organs (the mouth or nose) it is by authoritie of all authors, writing
+in that kinde, mortall and deadlie, as one thus saith:
+
+
+     "_Noxia serpentum est admixto sanguine pestis._--LUCAN.
+
+
+"This serpent (or dragon, as some call it) is reputed to be nine feete,
+or rather more, in length, and shaped almost in the forme of an axeltree
+of a cart; a quantitie of thickness in the middest, and somewhat smaller
+at both endes. The former part, which he shootes forth as a necke, is
+supposed to be an elle long; with a white ring, as it were, of scales
+about it. The scales along his backe seem to be blackish, and so much as
+is discovered under his bellie, appeareth to be red; for I speak of no
+nearer description than of a reasonable ocular distance. For coming too
+neare it, hath already beene too dearely payd for, as you shall heare
+hereafter.
+
+"It is likewise discovered to have large feete, but the eye may be
+there deceived; for some suppose that serpents have no feete, but glide
+upon certain ribbes and scales, which both defend them from the upper
+part of their throat unto the lower part of their bellie, and also cause
+them to move much the faster. For so this doth, and rids way (as we call
+it) as fast as a man can run. He is of countenance very proud, and at
+the sight or hearing of men or cattel, will raise his necke upright, and
+seem to listen and looke about, with great arrogancy. There are likewise
+on either side of him discovered, two great bunches so big as a large
+foote-ball, and (as some thinke) will in time grow to wings; but God, I
+hope, will (to defend the poor people in the neighbourhood) that he
+shall be destroyed before he grow so fledge.
+
+"He will cast his venome about four rodde from him, as by woefull
+experience it was proved on the bodies of a man and a woman comming that
+way, who afterwards were found dead, being poysoned and very much
+swelled, but not prayed upon. Likewise a man going to chase it, and as
+he imagined, to destroy it with two mastive dogs, as yet not knowing the
+great danger of it, his dogs were both killed, and he himselfe glad to
+returne with hast to preserve his own life. Yet this is to be noted,
+that the dogs were not prayed upon, but slaine and left whole: for his
+food is thought to be, for the most part, in a conie-warren, which he
+much frequents; and it is found much scanted and impaired in the
+encrease it had woont to afford.
+
+[Sidenote: SIGNED AND WITNESSED]
+
+"These persons, whose names are hereunder printed, have seene this
+serpent, beside divers others, as the carrier of Horsam, who lieth at
+the White Horse in Southwarke, and who can certifie the truth of all
+that has been here related.
+
+                                                   John Steele.
+                                                   Christopher Holder.
+                                                   And a Widow Woman
+                                           dwelling nere Faygate."
+
+
+It would be very interesting to know what John Steele, Christopher
+Holder, and the widow woman really saw. Such a story must have had a
+basis of some kind. A printed narrative such as this would hardly have
+proceeded from a clear sky.
+
+St. Leonard's Forest has another familiar; for there the headless
+horseman rides, not on his own horse, but on yours, seated on the
+crupper with his ghostly arms encircling your waist. His name is
+Powlett, but I know no more, except that his presence is an additional
+reason why one should explore the forest on foot.
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX NIGHTINGALES]
+
+Sussex, especially near the coast, is naturally a good nightingale
+country. Many of the birds, pausing there after their long journey at
+the end of April, do not fly farther, but make their home where they
+first alight. I know of one meadow and copse under the north escarpment
+of the Downs where three nightingales singing in rivalry in a triangle
+(the perfect condition) can be counted upon in May, by night, and often
+by day too, as surely as the rising and setting of the sun. But in St.
+Leonard's Forest the nightingale never sings. American visitors who, as
+Mr. John Burroughs once did, come to England in the spring to hear the
+nightingale, must remember this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WEST GRINSTEAD, COWFOLD AND HENFIELD
+
+     "The Rape of the Lock"--Knepp castle--The Cowfold
+     brass--Carthusians in Sussex--The Oakendene cricketers--Fourteen
+     Golden Orioles on Henfield common--A Henfield botanist--Dr. Thomas
+     Stapleton's merits--A good epitaph--Sussex humour.
+
+
+West Grinstead is perhaps the most remarkable of the villages on the
+line from Horsham to Steyning, by reason of its association with
+literature, _The Rape of the Lock_ having been to a large extent
+composed beneath a tree in the park. Yet as one walks through this broad
+expanse of brake-fern, among which the deer are grazing, with the line
+of the Downs, culminating in Chanctonbury Ring, in view, it requires a
+severe effort to bring the mind to the consideration of Belinda's loss
+and all the surrounding drama of the toilet and the card table. If there
+is one thing that would not come naturally to the memory in West
+Grinstead park, it is the poetry of Pope.
+
+The present house, the seat of the Burrells, was built in 1806. It was
+in the preceding mansion that John Caryll, Pope's friend, made his home,
+moving hither from West Harting, as we have seen. Caryll suggested to
+Pope the subject of _The Rape of the Lock_, the hero of which was his
+cousin, Lord Petre. The line:--
+
+
+     This verse to Caryll, Muse, is due,
+
+
+is the poet's testimony and thanks. John Gay, who found life a jest, has
+also walked amid the West Grinstead bracken.
+
+West Grinstead church is isolated in the fields, a curiously pretty and
+cheerful building, with a very charming porch and a modest shingled
+spire rising from its midst. Brasses to members of the Halsham family
+are within, and a monument to Captain Powlett, whose unquiet ghost,
+hunting without a head, we have just met. Hard by the church is one of
+the most attractive and substantial of the smaller manor houses of
+Sussex, square and venerable and well-roofed with Horsham stone.
+
+A mile to the west, in a meadow by the Worthing road, stands the forlorn
+fragment of the keep which is all that remains of the Norman stronghold
+of Knepp. For its other stones you must seek the highways, the
+road-menders having claimed them a hundred years ago. William de Braose,
+whom we shall meet at Bramber, built it; King John more than once was
+entertained in it; and now it is a ruin. Yet if Knepp no longer has its
+castle, it has its lake--the largest in the county, a hundred acres in
+extent, a beautiful sheet of water the overflow of which feeds the Adur.
+
+Within a quarter of a mile of the ruin is the new Knepp Castle, which
+was built by Sir Charles Merrik Burrell, son of Sir William Burrell, the
+antiquary, whose materials for a history of Sussex on a grand scale,
+collected by him for many years, are now in the British Museum. But
+Knepp Castle, the new, with all its Holbeins, was destroyed by fire this
+1904.
+
+[Sidenote: THE NELOND BRASS]
+
+[Sidenote: THE COWL IN SUSSEX]
+
+To the east of the line lies Cowfold, balancing West Grinstead, a
+village ranged on either side of a broad road. It is famous chiefly for
+possessing, in its very pretty church, the Nelond brass, being the
+effigy of Thomas Nelond, Prior of Lewes, who died in 1433. Few brasses
+are finer or larger; in length it is nearly ten feet, its state is
+practically perfect, and pilgrims come from all quarters to rub it. John
+Nelond, in the dress of a Cluniac monk, stands with folded hands beneath
+an arch, protected by the Virgin and Child, St. Pancras, and St. Thomas
+a Becket. This splendid relic would, perhaps, were ours an ideal
+community, be handed over to the keeping of the Carthusian monks near
+by, in the Monastery of St. Hugh, the commanding building to the south
+of Cowfold, whose spire is to the Weald what that of Chichester
+Cathedral is to the plain between the Downs and the sea, and whose
+Angelus may be heard, on favourable evenings, for many miles. The
+Carthusian monks of St. Hugh's lend a very foreign air to the village
+when they walk through it. Visitors are encouraged to call at the
+porter's gate and explore this huge settlement--often in the very
+competent care of an Irish brother; while to suffer an accident anywhere
+in the neighbourhood is to be certain of a cordial glass of the
+monastery's own Chartreuse.
+
+It was at Brook Hill, just to the north of Cowfold, that William Borrer,
+the ornithologist and the author of _The Birds of Sussex_, lived and
+made many of his interesting observations.
+
+Near Cowfold is Oakendene, a stronghold of cricket at the beginning of
+the last century. William Wood was the greatest of the Oakendene men. He
+was the best bowler in Sussex, the art having been acquired as he walked
+about his farm with his dog, when he would bowl at whatever he saw and
+the dog would retrieve the ball. Borrer of Ditchling, Marchant of Hurst,
+Voice of Hand Cross, and Vallance of Brighton, also belonged to the
+Oakendene club. Borrer and Vallance played for Brighton against
+Marylebone, at Lord's, in 1792, and, when all the betting was against
+them, including gold rings and watches, won the match in the second
+innings by making respectively 60 and 68 not out. Another player in that
+match was Jutten, the fast bowler, who when things were going against
+him bowled at his man and so won by fear what he could not compass by
+skill. There are too many Juttens on village greens.
+
+Five miles south of Cowfold is Henfield, separated from Steyning, in the
+south-west, by the low-lying meadows through which the Adur runs and
+which in winter are too often a sheet of water.
+
+Henfield consists of the usual street, and a quiet, retired common,
+flat and marshy, with a flock of geese, some Scotch firs, and a fine
+view of Wolstonbury rising in the east. It was on Henfield common that
+Mr. Borrer once saw fourteen Golden Orioles on a thorn bush. Adventures
+are to the adventurous, birds to the ornithologist; most of us have
+never succeeded in seeing even one Oriole.
+
+[Sidenote: STAPLETON'S MERITS]
+
+William Borrer, the botanist, uncle of the ornithologist, was born in
+Henfield and is buried there. In his Henfield garden, in 1860, as many
+as 6,600 varieties of plants were growing. Beyond a small memoir on
+Lichens, written in conjunction with Dawson Turner, he left no book.
+Another illustrious son of Henfield was Dr. Thomas Stapleton, once Canon
+of Chichester and one of the founders of the Catholic College of Douay,
+of whom it was written, somewhat ambiguously, that he "was a man of mild
+demeanour and unsuspected integrity." Fuller has him characteristically
+touched off in the _Worthies_:--"He was bred in New Colledge in Oxford,
+and then by the Bishop (Christopherson, as I take it) made Cannon of
+Chichester, which he quickly quitted in the first of Queen _Elizabeth_.
+Flying beyond the Seas, he first fixed at _Douay_, and there commendably
+performed the office of _Catechist_, which he discharged to his
+commendation.
+
+"Reader, pardon an Excursion caused by just _Grief_ and _Anger_. Many,
+counting themselves Protestants in England, do slight and neglect that
+_Ordinance_ of _God_, by which their Religion was _set up_, and _gave
+Credit_ to it in the first _Reformation_; I mean, CATECHISING. Did not
+our _Saviour_ say even to Saint _Peter_ himself, 'Feed my Lambs, feed my
+Sheep'? And why _Lambs_ first? 1. Because they were _Lambs_ before they
+were _Sheep_. 2. Because, if they be not fed whilst _Lambs_ they could
+never be _Sheep_. 3. Because _Sheep_ can in some sort feed themselves;
+but _Lambs_ (such their tenderness) must either be _fed_ or _famished_.
+Our Stapleton was excellent at this _Lamb-feeding_."
+
+An epitaph in Henfield Church is worth copying for its quaint mixture
+of mythology and theology. It bears upon the death of a lad, Meneleb
+Raynsford, aged nine, who died in 1627:--
+
+
+     Great Jove hath lost his Gannymede, I know,
+     Which made him seek another here below--
+     And finding none--not one--like unto this,
+     Hath ta'en him hence into eternal bliss.
+     Cease, then, for thy dear Meneleb to weep,
+     God's darling was too good for thee to keep:
+     But rather joy in this great favour given,
+     A child on earth is made a saint in heaven.
+
+
+Three miles east of Henfield, and a little to the north, is a farm the
+present tenant of which has made an interesting experiment. He found in
+the house an old map of the county, and identifying his own estate,
+discovered a large sheet of water marked on it. On examining the site he
+saw distinct traces of this ancient lake, and at once set about building
+a dam to restore it. Water now, once again, fills the hollow, completely
+transforming this part of the country, and bringing into it wild duck
+and herons as of old. The lake is completely hidden from the
+neighbouring roads and is accessible only by field paths, but it is well
+worth finding.
+
+[Sidenote: A WOODCOCK ON AN OAK]
+
+There once hung in the parlour of Henfield's chief inn--I wonder if it
+is there still--a rude etching of local origin, rather in the manner of
+Buss's plates to _Pickwick_, representing an inn kitchen filled with a
+jolly company listening uproariously to a fat farmer by the fire, who,
+with arm raised, told his tale. Underneath was written, "Mr. West
+describing how he saw a woodcock settle on an oak"--a perfect specimen
+of the Sussex joke.
+
+[Illustration: _Church Street, Steyning._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+STEYNING AND BRAMBER
+
+     Saint Cuthman and his mother--Steyning's architecture--Steyning's
+     wise passiveness--Bramber castle--A corrupt pocket borough--A
+     Taxidermist-humorist--Joseph Poorgrass in Sussex--The widow of
+     Beeding and the Romney--A digression on curio-hunting.
+
+
+Of great interest and antiquity is Steyning, the little grey and red
+town which huddles under the hill four miles to Henfield's south-west.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ADVENTURES OF CUTHMAN]
+
+The beginnings of Steyning are lost in the distance. Its church was
+founded, probably in the eighth century, by St. Cuthman, an early
+Christian whose adventures were more than usually quaint. He began by
+tending his father's sheep, with which occupation his first miracle was
+associated. Being called one day to dinner, and having no one to take
+his place as shepherd, he drew a circle round the flock with his crook,
+and bade the sheep, in the name of the Lord, not to stray beyond it. The
+sheep obeyed, and thenceforward on repeating the same manoeuvre he
+left them with an easy mind. In course of time his father died, and
+Cuthman determined to travel; intense filial piety determined him to
+take his aged mother with him. In order to do this he constructed a
+wheelbarrow couch, which he partly supported by a cord over his
+shoulders. Thus united, mother and son fared forth into the cold world;
+which was, however, warmed for them by the watchful interest taken in
+Cuthman by a vigilant Providence. One day, for example, the cord of the
+barrow broke in a hayfield, where Cuthman, who supplied its place by
+elder twigs, was the subject of much ridicule among the haymakers.
+Immediately a heavy storm broke over the field, destroying the crop; and
+not only then, but ever afterwards in the same field--possibly to this
+day--has haymaking been imperilled by a similar storm. So runs the
+legend.
+
+The second occasion on which the cord broke and let down Cuthman's
+mother was at Steyning. Cuthman took the incident as a divine intimation
+that the time had come to settle, and he thereupon first built for his
+mother and himself a hut and afterwards a church. The present church
+stands on its site. Cuthman was buried there. So, also, was Ethelwulf,
+father of Alfred the Great, whose body afterwards was moved to
+Winchester. Alfred the Great had estates at Steyning, as elsewhere in
+Sussex.
+
+While Cuthman was building his church a beam shifted, making a vast
+amount of new labour necessary. But as the Saint sorrowfully was
+preparing to begin again, a stranger appeared, who pointed out how the
+mischief could be repaired in a more speedy manner and with less toil.
+Cuthman and his men followed his instructions, and all was quickly well
+again. Cuthman thereupon fell on his knees and asked the stranger who he
+was. "I am He in whose name thou buildest this temple," he replied, and
+vanished.
+
+[Illustration: _Steyning Church._]
+
+The present church, which stands on the site of St. Cuthman's, is only a
+reminder of what it must have been in its best days. When one faces the
+curiously chequered square tower, an impression of quiet dignity is
+imparted; but a broadside view is disappointing by reason of the high
+deforming roof, giving an impression as of a hunched back. (One sees the
+same effect at Udimore, in the east of Sussex.) Within are two rows of
+superb circular arches, with zigzag mouldings, on massive columns.
+
+[Sidenote: STEYNING AND HISTORY]
+
+Steyning has an importance in English history that is not generally
+credited to it. Edward the Confessor gave a great part of the land to
+the Abbey at Fecamp, whose church is, or was, the counterpart of
+Steyning's. These possessions Harold took away, an act that, among
+others, decided William, Duke of Normandy, upon his assailing, and
+conquering, course. Steyning should be proud. To have brought the
+Conqueror over is at least as worthy as to have come over with him, and
+far more uncommon.
+
+In Church Street stands Brotherhood Hall, a very charming ancient
+building, long used as a Grammar School, flanked by overhanging houses,
+which, though less imposing, are often more quaint and ingratiating.
+Most of Steyning, indeed, is of the past, and the spirit of antiquity is
+visibly present in its streets.
+
+The late Louis Jennings, in his _Rambles among the Hills_, was
+fascinated by the placid air of this unambitious town--as an American
+might be expected to be in the uncongenial atmosphere of age and
+serenity. "One almost expects," he wrote, "to see a fine green moss all
+over an inhabitant of Steyning. One day as I passed through the town I
+saw a man painting a new sign over a shop, a proceeding that so aroused
+my curiosity that I stood for a minute or two to look on. The painter
+filled in one letter, gave a huge yawn, looked up and down two or three
+times as if he had lost something, and finally descended from his perch
+and disappeared. Five weeks later I passed that way again, and it is a
+fact that the same man was at work on the same sign. Perhaps when the
+reader takes the walk I am about to recommend to his attention--a walk
+which comprises some of the finest scenery in Sussex--that sign will be
+finished, and the accomplished artist will have begun another; but I
+doubt it. There is plenty of time for everything in Steyning." I am told
+that Steyning was incensed when this criticism was printed (there was
+even talk of an action for libel); but it seems to me that whatever may
+have been intended, the words contain more of compliment than censure.
+In this hurrying age, it is surely high praise to have one's "wise
+passiveness" (as Wordsworth called it) so emphasised. The passage calls
+to mind Diogenes requesting, as the greatest of possible boons, that
+Alexander the Great would stand aside and not interrupt the sunshine;
+only at Steyning would one seek for Diogenes to-day. No commendation of
+Steyning in the direction of its enterprise, briskness, smartness, or
+any of the other qualities which are now most in fashion, would so
+speedily decide a wise man to pitch his tent there as Mr. Jennings'
+certificate of inertia.
+
+[Sidenote: STEYNING HARBOUR]
+
+Steyning, if still disposed to stand on its defence, might plead
+external influence, beyond the control of man, as an excuse for some of
+its interesting placidity. For this curiously inland town was once a
+port. In Saxon times (when Steyning was more important than Birmingham),
+the Adur was practically an estuary of the sea, and ships came into
+Steyning Harbour, or St. Cuthman's Port, as it was otherwise called.
+There is notoriously no such quiet spot as a dry harbour town. In those
+days, Steyning also had a mint.
+
+Bramber, a little roadside village less than a mile south-east of
+Steyning, also a mere relic of its great days, was once practically on
+the coast, for the arm of the sea which narrowed down at Steyning was
+here of great breadth, and washed the sides of the castle mound. The
+last time I came into Steyning was by way of the bostel down Steyning
+Round Hill. The old place seems more than ever medieval as one descends
+upon it from the height (the best way to approach a town); and sitting
+among the wild thyme on the turf I tried to reconstruct in imagination
+the scene a thousand years ago, with the sea flowing over the meadows of
+the Adur valley, and the masts of ships clustered beyond Steyning
+church. Once one had the old prospect well in the mind's eye, the
+landscape became curiously in need of water.
+
+[Illustration: _Bramber._]
+
+[Sidenote: BRAMBER]
+
+After rain, Bramber is a pleasant village, but when the dust flies it is
+good neither for man nor beast. All that remains of the castle is
+crumbling battlement and a wall of the keep, survivals of the renovation
+of the old Saxon stronghold by William de Braose, the friend of the
+Conqueror and the Sussex founder of the Duke of Norfolk's family. Picnic
+parties now frolic among the ruins, and enterprising boys explore the
+rank overgrowth in the moat below.
+
+The castle played no part in history, its demolition being due probably
+to gunpowder pacifically fired with a view to obtaining building
+materials. But during the Civil War the village was the scene of an
+encounter between Royalists and Roundheads. A letter from John Coulton
+to Samuel Jeake of Rye, dated January 8, 1643-4, thus describes the
+event:--"The enemy attempted Bramber bridge, but our brave Carleton and
+Evernden with his Dragoons and our Coll.'s horse welcomed them with
+drakes and musketts, sending some 8 or 9 men to hell (I feare) and one
+trooper to Arundel Castle prisoner, and one of Capt. Evernden's Dragoons
+to heaven." A few years later, as we have seen, Charles II. ran a grave
+risk at Bramber while on his way to Brighton and safety.
+
+[Sidenote: A POCKET BOROUGH]
+
+Bramber was, for many years, a pocket borough of the worst type. George
+Spencer, writing to Algernon Sidney after the Bramber election in 1679,
+says:--"You would have laughed to see how pleased I seemed to be in
+kissing of old women; and drinking wine with handfuls of sugar, and
+great glasses of burnt brandy; three things much against the stomach."
+In 1768, eighteen votes were polled for one candidate and sixteen for
+his rival. One of the tenants, in a cottage valued at about three
+shillings a week, refused _L_1000 for his vote. Bramber remained a pocket
+borough until the Reform Bill. William Wilberforce, the abolitionist,
+sat for it for some years; there is a story that on passing one day
+through the village he stopped his carriage to inquire the name.
+"Bramber? Why, that's the place I'm Member for."
+
+Bramber possesses a humorist in taxidermy, whose efforts win more
+attention than the castle. They are to be seen in a small museum in its
+single street, the price of admission being for children one penny, for
+adults twopence, and for ladies and gentlemen "what they please"
+(indicating that the naturalist also knows human nature). In one case,
+guinea-pigs strive in cricket's manly toil; in another, rats read the
+paper and play dominoes; in a third, rabbits learn their lessons in
+school; in a fourth, the last scene in the tragedy of the _Babes of the
+Wood_ is represented, Bramber Castle in the distance strictly
+localising the event, although Norfolk usually claims it.
+
+Isolated in the fields south of Bramber are two of the quaintest
+churches in the county--Coombes and Botolphs. Neither has an attendant
+village.
+
+[Illustration: _Coombes Church._]
+
+[Sidenote: JOSEPH POORGRASS IN FACT]
+
+The owl story, which crops up all over the country and is found in
+literature in Mr. Hardy's novel _Far from the Madding Crowd_, the scene
+whereof is a hundred miles west of Sussex, has a home also at Upper
+Beeding, the little dusty village beyond Bramber across the river. Mr.
+Hardy gives the adventure to Joseph Poorgrass; at Beeding, the hero is
+one Kiddy Wee. His rightful name was Kidd; but being very small the
+village had invented this double diminutive. Lost in the wood he cried
+for help, just as Poorgrass did. "Who? who?" asked the owl. "Kiddy Wee
+o' Beedin'," was the reply.
+
+[Sidenote: A DEALER OUTWITTED]
+
+It was not long ago that a masterpiece was discovered at Beeding, in one
+of those unlikely places in which with ironical humour fine pictures so
+often hide themselves. It hung in a little general shop kept by an
+elderly widow. After passing unnoticed or undetected for many years, it
+was silently identified by a dealer who happened to be buying some
+biscuits. He made a casual remark about it, learned that any value that
+might be set upon it was sentimental rather than monetary, and returned
+home. He laid the matter before one or two friends, with the result that
+they visited Beeding in a party a day or so later in order to bear away
+the prize. Outside the shop they held a council of war. One was for
+bidding at the outset a small but sufficient sum for the picture,
+another for affecting to want something else and leading round to the
+picture, and so forth; but in the discussion of tactics they raised
+their voices too high, so that a visitor of the widow, sitting in the
+room over the shop, heard something of the matter. Suspecting danger,
+but wholly unconscious of its nature, she hurried downstairs and warned
+her friend of a predatory gang outside who were not to be supplied on
+any account with anything they asked for. The widow obeyed blindly. They
+asked for tea--she refused to sell it; they asked for biscuits--she set
+her hand firmly on the lid; they mentioned the picture--she was a rock.
+Baffled, they withdrew; and the widow, now on the right scent, took the
+next train to Brighton to lay the whole matter before her landlord. He
+took it up, consulted an expert, and the picture was found to be a
+portrait of Mrs. Jordan, the work either of Romney or Lawrence.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FURNITURE SWINDLE]
+
+Furniture is the usual prey of the dealer who lounges casually through
+old villages in the guise of a tourist, asking for food or water at old
+cottages and farmhouses, and using his eyes to some purpose the while.
+Pictures are rare. The search for chests, turned bed-posts, fire-backs,
+Chippendale chairs, warming pans, grandfather's clocks, and other
+indigenous articles of the old simple homestead which are thought so
+decorative in the sophisticated villa and establish the artistic credit
+and taste of their new owner, has been prosecuted in Sussex with as much
+energy as elsewhere--not only by the professional dealer, but by
+amateurs no less unwilling to give an ignorant peasant fifteen
+shillings for an article which they know to be worth as many pounds. But
+suspicion of the plausible furniture collector has, I am glad to say,
+begun to spread, and the palmiest days of the spoliation of the country
+are probably over. It must not, however, be thought that the peasant is
+always the under dog, the amateur the upper. A London dealer informs me
+that the planting of spurious antiques in old cottages has become a
+recognised form of fraud among less scrupulous members of the trade. An
+oak chest bearing every superficial mark of age that a clever workman
+can give it (and the profession of wormholer, is now, I believe,
+recognised) is deposited in a tumble-down, half-timbered home in a
+country village, whose occupant is willing to take a share in the game;
+a ticket marked "Ginger-beer; sold Here" is placed in the window, and
+the trap is ready. It is almost beyond question that everyone who bids
+for this chest, which has, of course, been in the family for
+generations, is hoping to get it at a figure much lower than is just; it
+is quite certain that whatever is paid for it will be too much. Ugly as
+the situation is, I like to think of this biting of the biter.
+
+[Illustration: _Chanctonbury Ring._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CHANCTONBURY, WASHINGTON, AND WORTHING
+
+     Chanctonbury Ring--The planter of the beeches--The Gorings--Thomas
+     Fuller on the Three Shirleys--Ashington's chief--Warminghurst and
+     the phantasm--Washington--An expensive mug of beer--Findon--A
+     champion pluralist--Cissbury--John Selden's wit and wisdom--Thomas
+     a Becket's figs--Worthing's precious climate--Sompting church.
+
+
+For nothing within its confines is Steyning so famous as for the hill
+which rises to the south-west of it--Chanctonbury Ring. Other of the
+South Downs are higher, other are more commanding: Wolstonbury, for
+example, standing forward from the line, makes a bolder show, and Firle
+Beacon daunts the sky with a braver point; but when one thinks of the
+South Downs as a whole it is Chanctonbury that leaps first to the
+inward eye. Chanctonbury, when all is said, is the monarch of the range.
+
+The words of the Sussex enthusiast, refusing an invitation to spend a
+summer abroad, express the feeling of many of his countrymen:--
+
+
+     For howsoever fair the land,
+       The time would surely be
+     That brought our Wealden blackbird's note
+       Across the waves to me.
+
+     And howsoever strong the door,
+       'Twould never keep at bay
+     The thought of Fulking's violets,
+       The scent of Holmbush hay.
+
+     And ever when the day was done,
+       And all the sky was still,
+     How I should miss the climbing moon
+       O'er Chanctonbury's hill!
+
+
+[Sidenote: CHANCTONBURY RING]
+
+It is Chanctonbury's crown of beeches that lifts it above the other
+hills. Uncrowned it would be no more noticeable than Fulking Beacon or a
+score of others; but its dark grove can be seen for many miles. In
+Wiston House, under the hill, the seat of the Goring family, to whom
+belong the hill and a large part of the country that it dominates, is an
+old painting of Chanctonbury before the woods were made, bare as the
+barest, without either beech or juniper, and the eye does not notice it
+until all else in the picture has been examined. The planter of
+Chanctonbury's Ring, in 1760, was Mr. Charles Goring of Wiston, who
+wrote in extreme old age in 1828 the following lines:--
+
+
+     How oft around thy Ring, sweet Hill,
+       A Boy, I used to play,
+     And form my plans to plant thy top
+       On some auspicious day.
+     How oft among thy broken turf
+       With what delight I trod,
+     With what delight I placed those twigs
+       Beneath thy maiden sod.
+     And then an almost hopeless wish
+       Would creep within my breast,
+     Oh! could I live to see thy top
+       In all its beauty dress'd.
+     That time's arrived; I've had my wish,
+       And lived to eighty-five;
+     I'll thank my God who gave such grace
+       As long as e'er I live.
+     Still when the morning Sun in Spring,
+       Whilst I enjoy my sight,
+     Shall gild thy new-clothed Beech and sides,
+       I'll view thee with delight.
+
+
+Most of the trees on the side of Chanctonbury and its neighbours were
+self-sown, children of the clumps which Mr. Goring planted. I might add
+that Mr. Charles Goring was born in 1743, and his son, the present Rev.
+John Goring, in 1823, when his father was eighty; so that the two lives
+cover a period of one hundred and sixty years--true Sussex longevity.
+
+Wiston House (pronounced Wisson) is a grey Tudor building in the midst
+of a wide park, immediately under the hill. The lofty hall, dating from
+Elizabeth's reign, is as it was; much of the remainder of the house was
+restored in the last century. The park has deer and a lake. The Goring
+family acquired Wiston by marriage with the Faggs, and a superb portrait
+of Sir John Fagg, in the manner of Vandyck with a fine flavour of
+Velasquez, is one of the treasures of the house.
+
+[Sidenote: SIR ANTHONY SHIRLEY]
+
+Before the Faggs came the Shirleys, a family chiefly famous for the
+three wonderful brothers, Anthony, Robert, and Thomas.
+
+Fuller, in the _Worthies_, gives them full space indeed considering that
+none was interested in the Church. I cannot do better than quote
+him:--"SIR ANTHONY SHIRLEY, second Son to Sir _Thomas_, set forth from
+_Plimouth_, _May_ the 21st, 1596, in a Ship called the _Bevis of
+Southampton_, attended with six lesser vessels. His design for _Saint
+Thome_ was violently diverted by the contagion they found on the South
+Coast of Africa, where the rain did stink as it fell down from the
+heavens, and within six hours did turn into magots. This made him turn
+his course to _America_, where he took and kept the city of _St. Jago_
+two days and nights, with two hundred and eighty men (whereof eighty
+were wounded in the service), against three thousand _Portugalls_.
+
+"Hence he made for the Isle of _Fuego_, in the midst whereof a
+Mountaine, AEtna-like, always burning; and the wind did drive such a
+shower of ashes upon them, that one might have wrote his name with his
+finger on the upper deck. However, in this fiery Island, they furnished
+themselves with good water, which they much wanted.
+
+"Hence he sailed to the Island of _Margarita_, which to him did not
+answer its name, not finding here the _Perl Dredgers_ which he expected.
+Nor was his gaine considerable in taking the Town of _Saint Martha_, the
+Isle and chief town of _Jamaica_, whence he sailed more than _thirty_
+leagues up the river _Rio-dolci_, where he met with great extremity.
+
+"At last, being diseased in person, distressed for victuals, and
+deserted by all his other ships, he made by _New-found-land_ to
+_England_, where he arrived June 15, 1597. Now although some behold his
+voyage, begun with more courage then counsel, carried on with more
+valour then advice, and coming off with more honour than profit to
+himself or the nation (the Spaniard being rather frighted then harmed,
+rather braved then frighted therewith); yet unpartial judgments, who
+measure not worth by success, justly allow it a prime place amongst the
+probable (though not prosperous) English Adventures.
+
+[Sidenote: SIR ROBERT SHIRLEY]
+
+"SIR ROBERT SHIRLEY, youngest Son to Sir _Thomas_, was, by his Brother
+_Anthony_, entred in the _Persian_ Court. Here he performed great
+Service against the _Turkes_, and shewed the difference betwixt
+_Persian_ and _English_ Valour; the latter having therein as much
+Courage, and more Mercy, giving Quarter to Captives who craved it, and
+performing Life to those to whom he promised it. These his Actions drew
+the Envie of the _Persian_ Lords, and Love of the Ladies, amongst whom
+one (reputed a Kins-man to the great _Sophy_) after some Opposition, was
+married unto him. She had more of _Ebony_ than _Ivory_ in her
+Complexion; yet amiable enough, and very valiant, a quality considerable
+in that Sex in those Countries. With her he came over to _England_, and
+lived many years therein. He much affected to appear in _forreign
+Vestes_; and, as if his _Clothes_ were his limbs, accounted himself
+never ready till he had something of the Persian Habit about him.
+
+"At last a Contest happening betwixt him and the Persian Ambassadour (to
+whom some reported Sir Robert gave a Box on the Ear) the King sent them
+both into _Persia_, there mutually to impeach one another, and joyned
+Doctor _Gough_ (a Senior Fellow of _Trinity colledge_ in _Cambridge_) in
+commission with Sir Robert. In this Voyage (as I am informed) both died
+on the Seas, before the controverted difference was ever heard in the
+Court of _Persia_, about the beginning of the Reign of King _Charles_.
+
+[Sidenote: SIR THOMAS SHIRLEY]
+
+"Sir THOMAS SHIRLEY, I name him the last (though the eldest Son of his
+Father) because last appearing in the world, men's _Activity_ not always
+observing the method of their _Register_. As the Trophies of _Miltiades_
+would not suffer _Themistocles_ to sleep; so the Atchievements of his
+two younger brethren gave an Alarum unto his spirit. He was ashamed to
+see them worne like Flowers 'in the _Breasts_ and _Bosomes_ of forreign
+Princes, whilst he himself withered upon the stalk he grew on'. This
+made him leave his aged Father and fair Inheritance in this _County_,
+and to undertake _Sea Voyages_ into forreign parts, to the great
+_honour_ of his _Nation_, but small _inriching_ of _himself_; so that he
+might say to his Son, as _AEneas_ to _AEscanius_:--
+
+
+     'Disce, puer, Virtutem ex me verumque Laborem,
+     Fortunam ex aliis.'
+
+     'Virtue and Labour learn from me thy Father,
+     As for Success, Child, learn from others rather.'
+
+
+"As to the generall performance of these _three brethren_, I know the
+_Affidavit_ of a Poet carrieth but a small credit in the _court of
+History_; and the _Comedy_ made of them is but a _friendly foe_ to their
+Memory, as suspected more accomodated to please the present spectators,
+then inform posterity. However, as the belief of Mitio (when an
+_Inventory_ of his adopted _Sons misdemeanours_ was brought unto him)
+embraced a middle and moderate way, _nec omnia credere nec nihil_,
+neither to _believe all things nor nothing_ of what was told him: so in
+the _list of their Atchievements_ we may safely pitch on the same
+proportion, and, when abatement is made for _poeticall embelishments_,
+the remainder will speak them Worthies in their generations."--Such were
+the three Shirleys.
+
+Wiston church, which shelters under the eastern wall of the house,
+almost leaning against it, has some interesting tombs.
+
+[Sidenote: BIOHCHANDOUNE]
+
+Walking west from Wiston we come to the tiny hamlet of Buncton, one of
+the oldest settlements in Sussex, a happy hunting ground for excavators
+in search of Roman remains, and possessing in Buncton chapel a quaint
+little Norman edifice. The word Buncton is a sign of modern carelessness
+for beautiful words: the original Saxon form was "Biohchandoune," which
+is charming.
+
+Buncton belongs to Ashington, two miles to the north-west on the
+Worthing road, a quiet village with a fifteenth-century church (a mere
+child compared with Buncton Chapel) and a famous loss. The loss is
+tragic, being no less than that of the parish register containing a full
+and complete account, by Ashington's best scribe, of a visit of Good
+Queen Bess to the village in 1591. A destroyed church may be built
+again, but who shall restore the parish register? The book, however, is
+perhaps still in existence, for it was deliberately stolen, early in the
+eighteenth century, by a thief who laid his plans as carefully as did
+Colonel Blood in his attack on the regalia, abstracting the volume from
+a cupboard in the rectory, through a hole which he made in the outside
+wall. No interest in the progress of Queen Elizabeth prompted him: the
+register was taken during the hearing of a law suit in order that its
+damning evidence might not be forthcoming.
+
+[Sidenote: WILLIAM PENN IN SUSSEX]
+
+While at Ashington we ought to see Warminghurst, only a mile distant,
+once the abode of the Shelleys, and later of William Penn, who bought
+the great house in 1676. One of his infant children is buried at
+Coolham, close by, where he attended the Quakers' meeting and where
+services are still held. The meeting-house was built of timber from one
+of Penn's ships.
+
+A later owner than Penn, James Butler, rebuilt Warminghurst and
+converted a large portion of the estate into a deer park; but it was
+thrown back into farm land by one of the Dukes of Norfolk, while the
+house was destroyed, the deer exiled, and the lake drained. Perhaps it
+was time that the house came down, for in the interim it had been
+haunted; the ghost being that of the owner of the property, who one day,
+although far distant, was seen at Warminghurst by two persons and
+afterwards was found to have died at the time of his appearance.
+Warminghurst in those days of park and deer, lake and timber (it had a
+chestnut two hundred and seventy years old), might well be the first
+spot to which an enfranchised spirit winged its way.
+
+From Warminghurst is a road due south, over high sandy heaths, to
+Washington, which, unassuming as it is, may be called the capital of a
+large district of West Sussex that is unprovided with a railway.
+Steyning, five miles to the east, Amberley, seven miles to the west, and
+West Worthing, eight miles to the south, on the other side of the Downs,
+are the nearest stations. In the midst of this thinly populated area
+stands Washington, at the foot of the mountain pass that leads to
+Findon, Worthing and the sea. It was once a Saxon settlement (Wasa inga
+tun, town of the sons of Wasa); it is now derelict, memorable only as a
+baiting place for man and beast. But there are few better spots in the
+country for a modest contented man to live and keep a horse. Rents are
+low, turfed hills are near, and there is good hunting.
+
+[Sidenote: A COSTLY QUART]
+
+The church, which was restored about fifty years ago, but retains its
+Tudor tower, stands above the village. In 1866 three thousand pennies of
+the reign of Edward the Confessor and Harold were turned up by a plough
+in this parish, and, says Mr. Lower, were held so cheaply by their
+finders that half a pint measure of them was offered at the inn by one
+man in exchange for a quart of beer. Possibly Mr. Hilaire Belloc would
+not think the price excessive, for I find him writing, in a "Sussex
+Drinking Song":
+
+
+     They sell good beer at Haslemere
+       And under Guildford Hill;
+     At little Cowfold, as I've been told,
+       A beggar may drink his fill.
+     There is a good brew in Amberley too,
+       And by the Bridge also;
+     But the swipes they take in at the Washington Inn
+       Is the very best beer I know.
+
+
+The white road to Worthing from Washington first climbs the hills and
+then descends steadily to the sea. The first village is Findon, three
+miles distant, but one passes on the way two large houses, Highden and
+Muntham. Muntham, which was originally a shooting box of Viscount
+Montagu, lord of Cowdray, was rebuilt in the nineteenth century by an
+eccentric traveller in the East, named Frankland, a descendant of Oliver
+Cromwell, who, settling at home again, gave up his time to collecting
+mechanical appliances.
+
+Findon is a pleasant little village at the bottom of the valley, the
+home of the principal Sussex training stable, which has its galloping
+course under Cissbury. Training stables may be found in many parts of
+the Downs, but the Sussex turf has not played the same part in the
+making of race horses as that of Hampshire and Berkshire.
+
+Lady Butler painted the background of her picture of Balaclava at
+Findon, the neighbourhood of which curiously resembles in configuration
+the Russian battlefield.
+
+[Sidenote: A FINISHED PLURALIST]
+
+The rector of Findon in 1276, Galfridus de Aspall, seems to have brought
+the art of pluralising to a finer point than most. In addition to being
+rector of Findon, he had, Mr. Lower tells us, a benefice in London, two
+in the diocese of Lincoln, one in Rochester, one in Hereford, one in
+Coventry, one in Salisbury, and seven in Norwich. He was also Canon of
+St. Paul's and Master of St. Leonard's Hospital at York.
+
+Above Findon on the south-east rises Cissbury, one of the finest of the
+South Downs, but, by reason of its inland position, less noticeable than
+the hills on the line. There have been many conjectures as to its
+history. The Romans may have used it for military purposes, as certainly
+they did for the pacific cultivation of the grape, distinct terraces as
+of a vineyard being still visible; traces of a factory of flint arrow
+heads have been found (giving it the ugly name of the "Flint
+Sheffield"); while Cissa, lord of Chichester, may have had a bury or
+fort there. Mr. Lower's theory is that the earthworks on the summit,
+whatever their later function, were originally religious, and probably
+druidical.
+
+Salvington (a little village which is gained by leaving the main road
+two miles beyond Cissbury and bearing to the west) is distinguished as
+the birthplace, in 1584, of one who was considered by Hugo Grotius to be
+the glory of the English nation--John Selden. Nowadays, when we choose
+our glories among other classes of men than jurists and wits, it is more
+than possible for even cultured persons who are interested in books to
+go through life very happily without knowledge at all of this great man,
+the friend of great men and the writer best endowed with common sense of
+any of his day. From Selden's _Table Talk_ I take a few passages on the
+homelier side, to be read at Salvington:--
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN SELDEN'S WISDOM]
+
+
+     FRIENDS.
+
+     Old Friends are best. King James used to call for his old Shoes;
+     they were easiest for his Feet.
+
+
+     CONSCIENCE.
+
+     Some men make it a Case of Conscience, whether a Man may have a
+     Pigeon-house, because his Pigeons eat other Folks' Corn. But there
+     is no such thing as Conscience in the Business; the Matter is,
+     whether he be a Man of such Quality, that the State allows him to
+     have a Dove-house; if so, there's an end of the business; his
+     Pigeons have a right to eat where they please themselves.
+
+
+     CHARITY.
+
+     Charity to Strangers is enjoin'd in the Text. By Strangers is there
+     understood those that are not of our own Kin, Strangers to your
+     Blood; not those you cannot tell whence they come; that is, be
+     charitable to your Neighbours whom you know to be honest poor
+     People.
+
+
+     CEREMONY.
+
+     Ceremony keeps up all things: 'Tis like a Penny-Glass to a rich
+     Spirit, or some excellent Water; without it the Water were spilt,
+     the Spirit lost.
+
+     Of all people Ladies have no reason to cry down Ceremony, for they
+     take themselves slighted without it. And were they not used with
+     Ceremony, with Compliments and Addresses, with Legs and Kissing of
+     Hands, they were the pitifullest Creatures in the World. But yet
+     methinks to kiss their Hands after their Lips, as some do, is like
+     little Boys, that after they eat the apple, fall to the Paring, out
+     of a Love they have to the Apple.
+
+
+     RELIGION.
+
+     Religion is like the Fashion: one Man wears his Doublet slashed,
+     another laced, another plain; but every Man has a Doublet. So every
+     man has his Religion. We differ about Trimming.
+
+     Alteration of Religion is dangerous, because we know not where it
+     will stay: 'tis like a _Millstone_ that lies upon the top of a pair
+     of Stairs; 'tis hard to remove it, but if once it be thrust off the
+     first Stair, it never stays till it comes to the bottom.
+
+     We look after Religion as the Butcher did after his Knife, when he
+     had it in his Mouth.
+
+
+     WIT.
+
+     Nature must be the ground-work of Wit and Art; otherwise whatever
+     is done will prove but Jack-pudding's work.
+
+
+     WIFE.
+
+     You shall see a Monkey sometime, that has been playing up and down
+     the Garden, at length leap up to the top of the Wall, but his Clog
+     hangs a great way below on this side: the Bishop's Wife is like
+     that Monkey's Clog; himself is got up very high, takes place of the
+     Temporal Barons, but his Wife comes a great way behind.
+
+
+Selden's father was a small farmer who played the fiddle well. The boy
+is said at the age of ten to have carved over the door a Latin distich,
+which, being translated, runs:--
+
+
+     Walk in and welcome, honest friend; repose.
+     Thief, get thee gone! to thee I'll not unclose.
+
+
+[Sidenote: SAINT THOMAS'S FIGS]
+
+Between Salvington and Worthing lies Tarring, noted for its fig gardens.
+It is a fond belief that Thomas a Becket planted the original trees from
+which the present Tarring figs are descended; and there is one tree
+still in existence which tradition asserts was set in the earth by his
+own hand. Whether this is possible I am not sufficiently an
+arboriculturist to say; but Becket certainly sojourned often in the
+Archbishop of Canterbury's palace in the village. The larger part of the
+present fig garden dates from 1745. I have seen it stated that during
+the season a little band of _becca ficos_ fly over from Italy to taste
+the fruit, disappearing when it is gathered; but a Sussex ornithologist
+tells me that this is only a pretty story.
+
+The fig gardens are perhaps sufficient indication that the climate of
+this part of the country is very gentle. It is indeed unique in
+mildness. There is a little strip of land between the sea and the hills
+whose climatic conditions approximate to those of the Riviera: hence, in
+addition to the success of the Tarring fig gardens, Worthing's fame for
+tomatoes and other fruit. I cannot say when the tomato first came to the
+English table, but the first that I ever saw was at Worthing, and
+Worthing is now the centre of the tomato-growing industry. Miles of
+glass houses stretch on either side of the town.
+
+Worthing (like Brighton and Bognor) owed its beginning as a health
+resort to the house of Guelph, the visit of the Princess Amelia in 1799
+having added a _cachet_, previously lacking, to its invigorating
+character. But, unlike Brighton, neither Worthing nor Bognor has
+succeeded in becoming quite indispensable. Brighton has the advantage
+not only of being nearer London but also nearer the hills. One must walk
+for some distance from Worthing before the lonely highland district
+between Cissbury and Lancing Clump is gained, whereas Brighton is partly
+built upon the Downs and has her little Dyke Railway to boot. But the
+visitor to Worthing who, surfeited of sea and parade, makes for the hill
+country, knows a solitude as profound as anything that Brighton's
+heights can give him.
+
+[Sidenote: "HAWTHORN AND LAVENDER"]
+
+Worthing has at least two literary associations. It was there that that
+most agreeable comedy _The Importance of Being Earnest_ was written: the
+town even gave its name to the principal character--John Worthing; and
+it was there that Mr. Henley lived while the lyrics in _Hawthorn and
+Lavender_ were coming to him. The beautiful dedication to the book is
+dated "Worthing, July 31, 1901."
+
+
+     Ask me not how they came,
+     These songs of love and death,
+     These dreams of a futile stage,
+     These thumb-nails seen in the street:
+     Ask me not how nor why,
+     But take them for your own,
+     Dear Wife of twenty years,
+     Knowing--O, who so well?--
+     You it was made the man
+     That made these songs of love,
+     Death, and the trivial rest:
+     So that, your love elsewhere,
+     These songs, or bad or good--
+     How should they ever have been?
+
+
+[Illustration: _Sompting._]
+
+[Sidenote: SOMPTING]
+
+Of the villages to the west we have caught glimpses in an earlier
+chapter--Goring, Angmering, Ferring, and so forth; to the north and east
+are Broadwater, Sompting and Lancing. Broadwater is perhaps a shade too
+near Worthing to be interesting, but Sompting, lying under the Downs, is
+unspoiled, with its fascinating church among the elms and rocks. The
+church (of which Mr. Griggs has made an exquisite drawing) was built
+nearly eight hundred years ago. Within are some curious fragments of
+sculpture, and a tomb which Mr. Lower considered to belong to Richard
+Bury, Bishop of Chichester in the reign of Henry VIII. East of Sompting
+lie the two Lancings, North Lancing on the hill, South Lancing on the
+coast. East of North Lancing, the true village, stands Lancing College,
+high above the river, with its imposing chapel, a landmark in the valley
+of the Adur and far out to sea.
+
+[Illustration: _Lancing._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+BRIGHTON
+
+     A decline in interest--The storied past of Brighton--Dr. Russell's
+     discovery--The First Gentleman in Europe--The resources of the
+     Steyne--Promenade Grove--A loyal journalist--The Brighton
+     bathers--Smoaker and Martha Gunn--The Prince and cricket--The
+     Nonpareil at work--Byron at Brighton--Hazlitt's observation--Horace
+     Smith's verses--Sidney Smith on the M.C.--Captain Tattersall--Pitt
+     and the heckler--Dr. Johnson in the sea--Mrs. Pipchin and Dr.
+     Blimber--The Brighton fishermen--Richard Jefferies on the town--The
+     Cavalier--Mr. Booth's birds--Old Pottery.
+
+
+Brighton is interesting only in its past. To-day it is a suburb, a lung,
+of London; the rapid recuperator of Londoners with whom the pace has
+been too severe; the Mecca of day-excursionists, the steady friend of
+invalids and half-pay officers. It is vast, glittering, gay; but it is
+not interesting.
+
+To persons who care little for new towns the value of Brighton lies in
+its position as the key to good country. In a few minutes one can travel
+by train to the Dyke, and leaving booths and swings behind, be free of
+miles of turfed Down or cultivated Weald; in a few minutes one can reach
+Hassocks, the station for Wolstonbury and Ditchling Beacon; in a few
+minutes one can gain Falmer and plunge into Stanmer Park; or, travelling
+to the next station, correct the effect of Brighton's hard brilliance
+amid the soothing sleepinesses of Lewes; in a few minutes on the western
+line one can be at Shoreham, amid ship-builders and sail-makers, or on
+the ramparts of Bramber Castle, or among the distractions of Steyning
+cattle market, with Chanctonbury Ring rising solemnly beyond. Brighton,
+however, knows little of these homes of peace, for she looks only out to
+sea or towards London.
+
+[Sidenote: BRIGHTON'S STORIED PAST]
+
+Brighton was, however, interesting a hundred years ago; when the
+Pavilion was the favourite resort of the First Gentleman in Europe
+(whose opulent charms, preserved in the permanency of mosaic, may be
+seen in the Museum); when the Steyne was a centre of fashion and folly;
+coaches dashed out of Castle Square every morning and into Castle Square
+every evening; Munden and Mrs. Siddons were to be seen at one or other
+of the theatres; Martha Gunn dipped ladies in the sea; Lord Frederick
+Beauclerck played long innings on the Level; and Mr. Barrymore took a
+pair of horses up Mrs. Fitzherbert's staircase and could not get them
+down again without the assistance of a posse of blacksmiths.
+
+Brighton was interesting then, reposing in the smiles of the Prince of
+Wales and his friends. But it is interesting no more,--with the Pavilion
+a show place, the Dome a concert hall, the Steyne an enclosure, Martha
+Gunn in her grave, the Chain Pier a memory, Mrs. Fitzherbert's house the
+headquarters of the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Brighton
+road a racing track for cyclists, motor cars and walking stockbrokers.
+Brighton is entertaining, salubrious, fashionable, what you will. Its
+interest has gone.
+
+The town's rise from Brighthelmstone (pronounced Brighton) a fishing
+village, to Brighton, the marine resort of all that was most dashing in
+English society, was brought about by a Lewes doctor in the days when
+Lewes was to Brighton what Brighton now is to Lewes. This doctor was
+Richard Russell, born in 1687, who, having published in 1750 a book on
+the remedial effects of sea water, in 1754 removed to Brighton to be
+able to attend to the many patients that were flocking thither. That
+book was the beginning of Brighton's greatness. The seal was set upon it
+in 1783, when the Prince of Wales, then a young man just one and twenty,
+first visited the town.
+
+[Sidenote: LE PRINCE S'AMUSE]
+
+The Prince's second visit to Brighton was in July 1784. He then stayed
+at the house engaged for him by his cook, Louis Weltje, which, when he
+decided to build, became the nucleus of the Pavilion. The Prince at this
+time (he was now twenty-two) was full of spirit and enterprise, and in
+the company of Colonel Hanger, Sir John Lade of Etchingham, and other
+bloods, was ready for anything: even hard work, for in July 1784 he rode
+from Brighton to London and back again, on horse-back, in ten hours. One
+of his diversions in 1785 is thus described in the Press: "On Monday,
+June 27, His Royal Highness amused himself on the Steyne for some time
+in attempting to _shoot doves with single balls_; but with what result
+we have not heard, though the Prince is esteemed a most excellent shot,
+and seldom presents his piece without doing some execution. The Prince,
+in the course of his diversion, either by design or accident, _lowered
+the tops of several of the chimneys of the Hon. Mr. Windham's house_."
+The Prince seemed to live for the Steyne. When the first scheme of the
+Pavilion was completed, in 1787, his bedroom in it was so designed that
+he could recline at his ease and by means of mirrors watch everything
+that was happening on his favourite promenade.
+
+The Prince was probably as bad as history states, but he had the quality
+of his defects, and Brighton was the livelier for the presence of his
+friends. Lyme Regis, Margate, Worthing, Lymington, Bognor--these had
+nothing to offer beyond the sea. Brighton could lay before her guests a
+thousand odd diversions, in addition to concerts, balls, masquerades,
+theatres, races. The Steyne, under the ingenious direction of Colonel
+Hanger, the Earl of Barrymore, and their associates, became an arena for
+curious contests. Officers and gentlemen, ridden by other officers and
+gentlemen, competed in races with octogenarians. Strapping young women
+were induced to run against each other for a new smock or hat. Every
+kind of race was devised, even to walking backwards; while a tame stag
+was occasionally liberated and hunted to refuge.
+
+[Sidenote: AN EARTHLY PARADISE]
+
+To the theatre came in turn all the London players; and once the
+mysterious Chevalier D'Eon was exhibited on its stage in a fencing bout
+with a military swordsman. The Promenade Grove, which covered part of
+the ground between New Road, the Pavilion, North Street and Church
+Street, was also an evening resort in fine weather (and to read about
+Brighton in its heyday is to receive an impression of continual fine
+weather, tempered only by storms of wind, such as never failed to blow
+when Rowlandson and his pencil were in the town, to supply that robust
+humorist with the contours on which his reputation was based). The Grove
+was a marine Ranelagh. Masquers moved among the trees, orchestras
+discoursed the latest airs, rockets soared into the sky. In the county
+paper for October 1st, 1798, I find the following florid reference to a
+coming event in the Grove:--"The glittering Azure and the noble Or of
+the peacock's wings, under the meridian sun, cannot afford greater
+exultation to that bird, than some of our beautiful belles of fashion
+promise themselves, from a display of their captivating charms at the
+intended masquerade at Brighton to-morrow se'nnight."
+
+In another issue of the paper for the same year are some extempore lines
+on Brighton, dated from East Street, which end thus ecstatically:--
+
+
+     Nature's ever bounteous hand
+     Sure has bless'd this happy land.
+     'Tis here no brow appears with care,
+     What would we be, but what we are?
+
+
+Before leaving this genial county organ I must quote from a paragraph in
+1796 on the Prince himself:--"The following couplet of Pope may be fitly
+applied to his Royal Highness:--
+
+
+     If to his share some manly errors fall,
+     Look on his face and you'll forget them all."
+
+
+What could be kinder? A little earlier, in a description of these
+anodyne features, the journalist had said of his Royal Highness's "arch
+eyes," that they "seem to look more ways than one at a time, and
+especially when they are directed towards the fair sex."
+
+Quieter and more normal pastimes were gossip at the libraries, riding
+and driving, and bathing in the sea. Bathing seems to have been taken
+very seriously, with none of the present matter-of-course haphazardness.
+In an old Guide to Brighton, dated 1794, I find the following
+description of the intrepid dippers of that day:--"It may not be
+improper here to introduce a short account of the manner of bathing in
+the sea at Brighthelmston. By means of a hook-ladder the bather ascends
+the machine, which is formed of wood, and raised on high wheels; he is
+drawn to a proper distance from the shore, and then plunges into the
+sea, the guides attending on each side to assist him in recovering the
+machine, which being accomplished, he is drawn back to shore. The guides
+are strong, active, and careful; and, in every respect, adapted to their
+employments."
+
+[Sidenote: "SMOAKER"]
+
+[Sidenote: MARTHA GUNN]
+
+Chief of the bathing women for many years was Martha Gunn, whose
+descendants still sell fish in the town; chief among the men was the
+famous Smoaker (his real name, John Miles) the Prince of Wales's
+swimming tutor. There is a story of his pulling the Prince back by the
+ear, when he had swum out too far against the old man's instructions;
+while on another occasion, when the sea was too rough for safety, he
+placed himself in front of his obstinate pupil in a fighting attitude,
+with the words, "What do you think your father would say to me if you
+were drowned? He would say, 'This is all owing to you, Smoaker. If you'd
+taken proper care of him, Smoaker, poor George would still be alive.'"
+Another of the pleasant stories of the Prince refers to Smoaker's
+feminine correlative--Martha Gunn. One day, being in the act of
+receiving an illicit gift of butter in the pavilion kitchen just as the
+Prince entered the room, she slipped the pat into her pocket. But not
+quite in time. Talking with the utmost affability, the Prince proceeded
+to edge her closer and closer to the great fire, pocket side nearest,
+and there he kept her until her sin had found her out and dress and
+butter were both ruined. Doubtless his Royal Highness made both good,
+for he had all the minor generosities.
+
+An old book, quoted in Mr. Bishop's interesting volume _A Peep into the
+Past_, gives the following scrap of typical conversation between Martha
+and a visitor:--"'What, my old friend, Martha,' said I, 'still queen of
+the ocean, still industrious, and busy as ever; and how do you find
+yourself'? 'Well and hearty, thank God, sir,' replied she, 'but rather
+hobbling. I don't bathe, because I a'nt so strong as I used to be, so I
+superintend on the beach, for I'm up before any of 'em; you may always
+find me and my pitcher at one exact spot, every morning by six o'clock.'
+'You wear vastly well, my old friend, pray what age may you be'? 'Only
+eighty-eight, sir; in fact, eighty-nine come next Christmas pudding;
+aye, and though I've lost my teeth I can mumble it with as good relish
+and hearty appetite as anybody.' 'I'm glad to hear it; Brighton would
+not look like itself without you, Martha,' said I. 'Oh, I don't know,
+it's like to do without me, some day,' answered she, 'but while I've
+health and life, I must be bustling amongst my old friends and
+benefactors; I think I ought to be proud, for I've as many bows from
+man, woman, and child, as the Prince hisself; aye, I do believe, the
+very dogs in the town know me.' 'And your son, how is he'? said I.
+'Brave and charming; he lives in East Street; if your honour wants any
+prime pickled salmon, or oysters, there you have 'em.'"
+
+On the Prince's birthday, and on the birthday of his royal brothers,
+Brighton went mad with excitement. Oxen were roasted whole, strong beer
+ran like water, and among the amusements single-wicket matches were
+played. One of the good deeds of the Prince was the making of a cricket
+ground. Before 1791, when the Prince's ground was laid out, matches had
+been played on the neighbouring hills, or on the Level. The Prince's
+ground stood partly on the Level as it now is, and partly on Park
+Crescent. In 1823, it became Ireland's Gardens, upon whose turf the most
+famous cricketers of England played until 1847. In 1848 the Brunswick
+ground at Hove was opened, close to the sea, into which the ball was
+occasionally hit by Mr. C. I. Thornton. The present Hove ground dates
+from 1871. I like to think that George IV., though no great cricketer
+himself (he played now and then when young "with great condescension and
+affability"), is the true father of Sussex cricket. He may deserve all
+that Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and Thackeray said of him, but without his
+influence and patronage the history of cricket would be the poorer by
+many bright pages.
+
+[Sidenote: THE NONPAREIL]
+
+Where Montpellier Crescent now stands, was, eighty years ago, the ground
+on which Frederick William Lillywhite, the Nonpareil, used to bowl to
+gentlemen young or old who were prepared to put down five shillings for
+the privilege. Little Wisden acted as a long stop. Lillywhite was the
+real creator of round-arm bowling, although Tom Walker of the Hambledon
+Club was the pioneer and James Broadbridge an earlier exponent. It was
+not until 1828 that round-arm was legalised. "Me bowling, Pilch batting,
+and Box keeping wicket--that's cricket," was the old man's dictum; or
+"When I bowls and Fuller bats," a variant has it, bowl being pronounced
+to rhyme with owl, "then you'll see cricket." He was thirty-five before
+he began his first-class career, he bowled fewer than a dozen wides in
+twenty-seven years, and his myriad wickets cost only seven runs a-piece.
+
+Brighton in its palmiest days was practically contained within the
+streets that bear boundary names, North Street, East Street, West
+Street, and the sea, with the parish church high on the hill. On the
+other side of the Steyne were the naked Downs, while the Lewes road and
+the London Road were mere thoroughfares between equally bare hills, with
+a few houses here and there.
+
+During the town's most fashionable period, which continued for nearly
+fifty years--say from 1785 to 1835--everyone journeyed thither; and
+indeed everyone goes to Brighton to-day, although its visitors are now
+anonymous where of old they were notorious. I believe that Robert
+Browning is the only eminent Englishman that never visited the town.
+Perhaps it does little for poets; yet Byron was there as a young man,
+much in the company of a charming youth with whom he often sailed in the
+Channel, and who afterwards was discovered to be a girl.
+
+[Sidenote: HORACE SMITH]
+
+A minor poet, Horace Smith, gives us, in _Horace in London_, a sprightly
+picture of the town in 1813, from which we see that the changes between
+now and then are only in externals:--
+
+
+                       BRIGHTON.
+
+         _Solvitur acris hyems grata vice veris._
+
+     Now fruitful autumn lifts his sunburnt head,
+       The slighted Park few cambric muslins whiten,
+     The dry machines revisit Ocean's bed,
+       And Horace quits awhile the town for _Brighton_.
+
+     The cit foregoes his box at Turnham Green,
+       To pick up health and shells with Amphitrite,
+     Pleasure's frail daughters trip along the Steyne,
+       Led by the dame the Greeks call Aphrodite.
+
+     Phoebus, the tanner, plies his fiery trade,
+       The graceful nymphs ascend Judea's ponies,
+     Scale the west cliff, or visit the parade,
+       While poor papa in town a patient drone is.
+
+     Loose trowsers snatch the wreath from pantaloons;
+       Nankeen of late were worn the sultry weather in;
+     But now, (so will the Prince's light dragoons,)
+       White jean have triumph'd o'er their Indian brethren.
+
+     Here with choice food earth smiles and ocean yawns,
+       Intent alike to please the London glutton;
+     This, for our breakfast proffers shrimps and prawns,
+       That, for our dinner, South-down lamb and mutton.
+
+     Yet here, as elsewhere, death impartial reigns,
+       Visits alike the cot and the _Pavilion_,
+     And for a bribe with equal scorn disdains
+       My half a crown, and _Baring's_ half a million.
+
+     Alas! how short the span of human pride!
+       Time flies, and hope's romantic schemes, are undone;
+     Cosweller's coach, that carries four inside,
+       Waits to take back the unwilling bard to London.
+
+     Ye circulating novelists, adieu!
+       Long envious cords my black portmanteau tighten;
+     Billiards, begone! avaunt, illegal loo!
+       Farewell old Ocean's bauble, glittering Brighton.
+
+     Long shalt thou laugh thine enemies to scorn,
+       Proud as Phoenicia, queen of watering places!
+     Boys yet unbreech'd, and virgins yet unborn,
+       On thy bleak downs shall tan their blooming faces.
+
+
+I believe that the phrase "Queen of Watering Places" was first used in
+this poem.
+
+[Sidenote: EXTINCT COURTESY]
+
+An odd glimpse of a kind of manners (now extinct) in Brighton visitors
+in its palmy days is given in Hazlitt's _Notes of a Journey through
+France and Italy_. Hazlitt, like his friends the Lambs, when they
+visited Versailles in 1822, embarked at Brighton. That was in 1824. He
+reached the town by coach in the evening, in the height of the season,
+and it was then that the incident occurred to which I have referred. In
+Hazlitt's words:--"A lad offered to conduct us to an inn. 'Did he think
+there was room?' He was sure of it. 'Did he belong to the inn?' 'No,' he
+was from London. In fact, he was a young gentleman from town, who had
+been stopping some time at the White-horse Hotel, and who wished to
+employ his spare time (when he was not riding out on a blood-horse) in
+serving the house, and relieving the perplexities of his
+fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would volunteer his assistance
+in this way. Amiable land of _Cockayne_, happy in itself, and in making
+others happy! Blest exuberance of self-satisfaction, that overflows
+upon others! Delightful impertinence, that is forward to oblige them!"
+
+[Sidenote: THE LORD OF THE TIDES]
+
+Brighton's decline as a fashionable resort came with the railway.
+Coaches were expensive and few, and the number of visitors which they
+brought to the town was negotiable; but when trains began to pour crowds
+upon the platforms the distinction of Brighton was lost. Society
+retreated, and the last Master of Ceremonies, Lieut. Col. Eld, died. It
+was of this admirable aristocrat that Sydney Smith wrote so happily in
+one of his letters from Brighton: "A gentleman attired _point device_,
+walking down the Parade, like Agag, 'delicately.' He pointed out his
+toes like a dancing-master; but carried his head like a potentate. As he
+passed the stand of flys, he nodded approval, as if he owned them all.
+As he approached the little goat carriages, he looked askance over the
+edge of his starched neckcloth and blandly smiled encouragement. Sure
+that in following him, I was treading in the steps of greatness, I went
+on to the Pier, and there I was confirmed in my conviction of his
+eminence; for I observed him look first over the right side and then
+over the left, with an expression of serene satisfaction spreading over
+his countenance, which said, as plainly as if he had spoken to the sea
+aloud, 'That is right. You are low-tide at present; but never mind, in a
+couple of hours I shall make you high-tide again.'"
+
+Beyond its connection with George IV. Brighton has played but a small
+part in history, her only other monarch being Charles II., who merely
+tarried in the town for awhile on his way to France, in 1651, as we have
+seen. The King's Head, in West Street, claims to be the scene of the
+merry monarch's bargain with Captain Nicholas Tattersall, who conveyed
+him across the Channel; but there is good reason to believe that the inn
+was the George in Middle Street, now demolished, but situated on the
+site of No. 44. The epitaph on Tattersall in Brighton old parish church
+contains the following lines:--
+
+
+     When Charles ye great was nothing but a breath
+     This valiant soul stept betweene him and death....
+
+     Which glorious act of his for church and state
+     Eight princes in one day did gratulate.
+
+
+The episode of the captain's cautious bargaining with the King, of which
+Colonel Gunter tells in the narrative from which I have quoted in an
+earlier chapter, is carefully suppressed on the memorial tablet.
+
+[Sidenote: PHEBE HESSEL]
+
+Another famous Brighton character and friend of George IV. was Phebe
+Hessel, who died at the age of 106, and whose tombstone may be seen in
+the old churchyard. Phebe had a varied career, for having fallen in love
+when only fifteen with Samuel Golding, a private in Kirk's Lambs, she
+dressed herself as a man, enlisted in the 5th Regiment of Foot, and
+followed him to the West Indies. She served there for five years, and
+afterwards at Gibraltar, never disclosing her sex until her lover was
+wounded and sent to Plymouth, when she told the General's wife, and was
+allowed to follow and nurse him. On leaving hospital Golding married
+her, and they lived, I hope happily, together for twenty years. When
+Golding died Phebe married Hessel.
+
+In her old age she became an important Brighton character, and
+attracting the notice of the Prince was provided by him with a pension
+of eighteen pounds a year, and the epithet "a jolly good fellow." It was
+also the Prince's money which paid the stone cutter. When visited by a
+curious student of human nature as she lay on her death-bed, Phebe
+talked much of the past, he records, and seemed proud of having kept her
+secret when in the army. "But I told it to the ground," she added; "I
+dug a hole that would hold a gallon and whispered it there." Phebe kept
+her faculties to the last, and to the last sold her apples to the
+Quality by the sea, returned repartees with extraordinary verve and
+contempt for false delicacy, and knew as much of the quality of Brighton
+liquor as if she were a soldier in earnest.
+
+One ought to mention Pitt's visit to Brighton, in 1785, as an historical
+event, if only for the proof which it offers that Sussex folk have an
+effective if not nimble wit. I use Mr. Bishop's words: "Pitt during his
+journey to Brighton, in the previous week, had some experience of
+popular feeling in respect of the obnoxious Window Tax. Whilst horses
+were being changed at Horsham, he ordered _lights_ for his carriage; and
+the persons assembled, learning who was within, indulged pretty freely
+in ironical remarks on _light_ and _darkness_. The only effect upon the
+Minister was, that he often laughed heartily. Whilst in Brighton, a
+country glove-maker hung about the door of his house on the Steyne; and
+when the Minister came out, showed him a _hedger's cuff_, which he held
+in one hand, and a _bush_ in the other, to explain the use of it, and
+asked him if the former, being an article he made and sold, was subject
+to a _Stamp Duty_? Mr. Pitt appeared rather struck with the oddity and
+bluntness of the man's question, and, mounting his horse, waived a
+satisfactory answer by referring him to the _Stamp Office_ for
+information."
+
+[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON IN THE SEA]
+
+Brighton's place in literature makes up for her historical poverty. Dr.
+Johnson was the first great man of letters to visit the town. He stayed
+in West Street with the Thrales, rode on the Downs and, after his wont,
+abused their bareness, making a joke about our dearth of trees similar
+to one on the same topic in Scotland. The Doctor also bathed. Mrs.
+Piozzi relates that one of the bathing men, seeing him swim, remarked,
+"Why, sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years
+ago!"--much to the Doctor's satisfaction.
+
+[Sidenote: MRS. PIPCHIN'S CASTLE]
+
+It was, I always think, in Hampton Place that Mrs. Pipchin, whose
+husband broke his heart in the Peruvian mines, kept her establishment
+for children and did her best to discourage Paul Dombey. How does the
+description run?
+
+
+     This celebrated Mrs. Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured,
+     ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled
+     face, like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that
+     looked as if it might have been hammered at on an anvil without
+     sustaining any injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the
+     Peruvian mines had been the death of Mr. Pipchin; but his relict
+     still wore black bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead,
+     sombre shade, that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and
+     her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. She was
+     generally spoken of as "a great manager" of children; and the
+     secret of her management was, to give them everything that they
+     didn't like, and nothing that they did--which was found to sweeten
+     their dispositions very much. She was such a bitter old lady, that
+     one was tempted to believe there had been some mistake in the
+     application of the Peruvian machinery, and that all her waters of
+     gladness and milk of human kindness had been pumped out dry,
+     instead of the mines.
+
+     The Castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a steep
+     bye-street at Brighton; where the soil was more than unusually
+     chalky, flinty, and sterile, and the houses were more than usually
+     brittle and thin; where the small front-gardens had the
+     unaccountable property of producing nothing but marigolds, whatever
+     was sown in them; and where snails were constantly discovered
+     holding on to the street doors, and other public places they were
+     not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of cupping-glasses. In
+     the winter-time the air couldn't be got out of the Castle, and in
+     the summer-time it couldn't be got in. There was such a continual
+     reverberation of wind in it, that it sounded like a great shell,
+     which the inhabitants were obliged to hold to their ears night and
+     day, whether they liked it or no. It was not, naturally, a
+     fresh-smelling house; and in the window of the front parlour, which
+     was never opened, Mrs. Pipchin kept a collection of plants in pots,
+     which imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the establishment.
+     However choice examples of their kind, too, these plants were of a
+     kind peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs. Pipchin. There
+     were half-a-dozen specimens of the cactus, writhing round bits of a
+     lath, like hairy serpents; another specimen shooting out broad
+     claws, like a green lobster; several creeping vegetables, possessed
+     of sticky and adhesive leaves; and one uncomfortable flower-pot
+     hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over, and
+     tickling people underneath with its long green ends, reminded them
+     of spiders--in which Mrs. Pipchin's dwelling was uncommonly
+     prolific, though perhaps it challenged competition still more
+     proudly, in the season, in point of earwigs.
+
+
+From Mrs. Pipchin's Paul Dombey passed to the forcing-house of Dr.
+Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, Miss Blimber and Mr. Feeder, B.A., also at
+Brighton, where he met Mr. Toots. "The Doctor's," says Dickens, "was a
+mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a joyful style of house
+within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured curtains, whose proportions
+were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently behind the windows. The
+tables and chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum; fires
+were so rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like
+wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the
+last place in the world where any eating or drinking was likely to
+occur; there was no sound through all the house but the ticking of a
+great clock in the hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets;
+and sometimes a dull cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like
+the murmurings of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons."--Dr. Blimber's
+must have been, I think, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Bedford
+Hotel.
+
+[Sidenote: THACKERAY'S PRAISE]
+
+Among other writers who have found Brighton good to work in I might name
+the authors of _The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_ and _A System of
+Synthetic Philosophy_. Mr. William Black was for many years a familiar
+figure on the Kemp Town parade, and Brighton plays a part in at least
+two of his charming tales--_The Beautiful Wretch_, and an early and very
+sprightly novel called _Kilmeny_. Brighton should be proud to think that
+Mr. Herbert Spencer chose her as a retreat in which to come to his
+conclusions; but I doubt if she is. Thackeray's affection is, however,
+cherished by the town, his historic praise of "merry cheerful Dr.
+Brighton" having a commercial value hardly to be over-estimated.
+Brighton in return gave Thackeray Lord Steyne's immortal name and served
+as a background for many of his scenes.
+
+Although Brighton has still a fishing industry, the spectacle of its
+fishermen refraining from work is not an uncommon one. It was once the
+custom, I read, and perhaps still is, for these men, when casting their
+nets for mackerel or herring, to stand with bare heads repeating in
+unison these words: "There they goes then. God Almighty send us a
+blessing it is to be hoped." As each barrel (which is attached to every
+two nets out of the fleet, or 120 nets) was cast overboard they would
+cry:--
+
+
+     Watch, barrel, watch! Mackerel for to catch,
+     White may they be, like a blossom on a tree.
+     God send thousands, one, two, and three,
+     Some by their heads, some by their tails,
+     God sends thousands, and never fails.
+
+
+When the last net was overboard the master said, "Seas all!" and then
+lowered the foremast and laid to the wind. If he were to say, "Last
+net," he would expect never to see his nets again.
+
+[Sidenote: BRIGHTON'S FAIR DAUGHTERS]
+
+"There are more handsome women in Brighton than anywhere else in the
+world," wrote Richard Jefferies some twenty years ago. "They are so
+common that gradually the standard of taste in the mind rises, and
+good-looking women who would be admired in other places pass by without
+notice. Where all the flowers are roses you do not see a rose." (Shirley
+Brooks must have visited Brighton on a curiously bad day, for seeing no
+pretty face he wrote of it as "The City of the Plain.") Richard
+Jefferies, who lived for a while at Hove, blessed also the treelessness
+of Brighton. Therein he saw much of its healing virtue. "Let nothing,"
+he wrote, "cloud the descent of those glorious beams of sunlight which
+fall at Brighton. Watch the pebbles on the beach; the foam runs up and
+wets them, almost before it can slip back, the sunshine has dried them
+again. So they are alternately wetted and dried. Bitter sea and glowing
+light, bright clear air, dry as dry--that describes the place. Spain is
+the country of sunlight, burning sunlight; Brighton is a Spanish town in
+England, a Seville."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PAVILION]
+
+The principal inland attraction of Brighton is still the Pavilion, which
+is indeed the town's symbol. On passing through its very numerous and
+fantastic rooms one is struck by their incredible smallness. Sidney
+Smith's jest (if it were his; I find Wilberforce, the Abolitionist,
+saying something similar) is still unimproved: "One would think that
+St. Paul's Cathedral had come to Brighton and pupped." Cobbett in his
+rough and homely way also said something to the point about the Prince's
+pleasure-house: "Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet
+and a half, and the height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk
+turnip, cut off the green of the leaves, leave the stalks nine inches
+long, tie these round with a string three inches from the top, and put
+the turnip on the middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips
+of half the size, treat them in the same way, and put them on the
+corners of the box. Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the
+crown-imperial, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and
+others; let the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or
+less according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty
+promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off
+and look at your architecture."
+
+To its ordinary museum in the town Brighton has added the collection of
+stuffed birds made by the late Mr. E. T. Booth, which he housed in a
+long gallery in the road that leads to the Dyke. Mr. Booth, when he shot
+a bird in its native haunts, carried away some of its surroundings in
+order that the taxidermist might reproduce as far as possible its
+natural environment. Hence every case has a value that is missing when
+one sees merely the isolated stuffed bird. In one instance realism has
+dictated the addition of a clutch of pipit's eggs found on the Bass
+Rock, in a nest invisible to the spectator. The collection in the
+Natural History Museum at South Kensington is of course more
+considerable, and finer, but some of Mr. Booth's cases are certainly
+superior, and his collection has the special interest of having been
+made by one man.
+
+[Sidenote: CRITICISM BY JUG]
+
+Brighton has another very interesting possession in the collection of
+old domestic pottery in the museum: an assemblage (the most entertaining
+and varied that I know) of jugs and mugs, plates and ornaments, all
+English, all quaint and characteristic too, and mostly inscribed with
+mottoes or decorated with designs in celebration of such events as the
+battle of Waterloo, or the discomfiture of Mr. Pitt, or a victory of Tom
+Cribb. Others are ceramic satires on the drunkard's folly or the
+inconstancy of women. Why are the potters of our own day so dull?
+History is still being made, human nature is not less frail; but I see
+no genial commentary on jug or dish. Is it the march of Taste?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ROTTINGDEAN AND WHEATEARS
+
+     Ovingdean--Charles II.--The introduction of Mangel
+     Wurzel--Rottingdean as a shrine--Mr. Kipling's Sussex poem--Thomas
+     Fuller on the Wheatear--Mr. Hudson's description of the traps--The
+     old prosperous days for shepherds--Luring larks--A fight on the
+     beach--The town that failed.
+
+
+Beyond Kemp Town's serene and silent line of massive houses is the new
+road that leads to Rottingdean. The old road fell into the sea some few
+years ago--the fourth or fifth to share that fate. But the pleasantest
+way thither is on foot over the turf that tops the white cliffs.
+
+By diverging inland between Brighton and Rottingdean, just beyond the
+most imposing girls' school in the kingdom, Ovingdean is reached, one of
+the nestling homesteads of the Downs. It is chiefly known as providing
+Harrison Ainsworth with the very pretty title of one of his stories,
+_Ovingdean Grange_. The gallant novelist, however, was a poor historian
+in this book, for Charles the Second, as we have seen, never set foot
+east of Brighton on the occasion of his journey of escape over the
+Sussex Downs. The legend that lodges him at Ovingdean, although one can
+understand how Ovingdean must cherish it, cannot stand. (Mock Beggars'
+Hall, in the same romance, is Southover Grange at Lewes.)
+
+Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. Ovingdean is famous
+not only for its false association with Charles the Second but as the
+burial place of Thomas Pelling, an old-time Vicar, "the first person who
+introduced Mangul Wurzel into England."
+
+[Sidenote: ROTTINGDEAN]
+
+Rottingdean to-day must be very much of the size of Brighton two
+centuries ago, before fashion came upon it; but the little village is
+hardly likely ever to creep over its surrounding hills in the same way.
+The past few years, however, have seen its growth from an obscure and
+inaccessible settlement to a shrine. It is only of quite recent date
+that a glimpse of Rottingdean has become almost as necessary to the
+Brighton visitor as the journey to the Dyke. Had the Legend of the Briar
+Rose never been painted; had Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd remained
+unchronicled and the British soldier escaped the label "Absent-minded
+Beggar," Rottingdean might still be invaded only occasionally; for it
+was when, following Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Mr. Rudyard Kipling found
+the little white village good to make a home in, that its public life
+began. Although Mr. Kipling has now gone farther into the depths of the
+county, and the great draughtsman, some of whose stained glass designs
+are in the church, is no more, the habit of riding to Rottingdean is
+likely, however, to persist in Brighton. The village is quaint and
+simple (particularly so after the last 'bus is stabled), but it is
+valuable rather as the key to some of the finest solitudes of the Downs,
+in the great uninhabited hill district between the Race Course at
+Brighton and Newhaven, between Lewes and the sea, than for any merits of
+its own. One other claim has it, however, on the notice of the pilgrim:
+William Black lies in the churchyard.
+
+[Sidenote: "BLUE GOODNESS OF THE WEALD"]
+
+Mr. Kipling, as I have said, has now removed his household gods farther
+inland, to Burwash, but his heart and mind must be still among the
+Downs. The Burwash country, good as it is, can (I think) never inspire
+him to such verse as he wrote in _The Five Nations_ on the turf hills
+about his old home:--
+
+
+     No tender-hearted garden crowns,
+       No bosomed woods adorn
+     Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
+       But gnarled and writhen thorn--
+     Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
+       And through the gaps revealed
+     Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim
+       Blue goodness of the Weald.
+
+     Clean of officious fence or hedge,
+       Half-wild and wholly tame,
+     The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge
+       As when the Romans came.
+     What sign of those that fought and died
+       At shift of sword and sword?
+     The barrow and the camp abide,
+       The sunlight and the sward.
+
+     Here leaps ashore the full Sou'west
+       All heavy-winged with brine,
+     Here lies above the folded crest
+       The Channel's leaden line;
+     And here the sea-fogs lap and cling,
+       And here, each warning each,
+     The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring
+       Along the hidden beach.
+
+     We have no waters to delight
+       Our broad and brookless vales--
+     Only the dewpond on the height
+       Unfed, that never fails,
+     Whereby no tattered herbage tells
+       Which way the season flies--
+     Only our close-bit thyme that smells
+       Like dawn in Paradise.
+
+     Here through the strong and salty days
+       The unshaded silence thrills;
+     Or little, lost, Down churches praise
+       The Lord who made the Hills:
+     But here the Old Gods guard their round,
+       And, in her secret heart,
+     The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found
+       Dreams, as she dwells, apart.
+
+
+[Sidenote: WHEATEARS]
+
+Of old the best wheatear country was above Rottingdean; but the South
+Down shepherds no longer have the wheatear money that used to add so
+appreciably to their wages in the summer months. A combination of
+circumstances has brought about this loss. One is the decrease in
+wheatears, another the protection of the bird by law, and a third the
+refusal of the farmers to allow their men any longer to neglect the
+flocks by setting and tending snares. But in the seventeenth, eighteenth
+and early part of the nineteenth centuries, wheatears were taken on the
+Downs in enormous quantities and formed a part of every south county
+banquet in their season. People visited Brighton solely to eat them, as
+they now go to Greenwich for whitebait and to Colchester for oysters.
+
+This is how Fuller describes the little creature in the
+_Worthies_--"_Wheatears_ is a bird peculiar to this County, hardly found
+out of it. It is so called, because fattest when Wheat is ripe, whereon
+it feeds; being no bigger than a Lark, which it equalleth in _fineness_
+of the flesh, far exceedeth in the _fatness_ thereof. The worst is, that
+being onely seasonable in the heat of summer, and naturally larded with
+lumps of fat, it is soon subject to corrupt, so that (though abounding
+within _fourty_ miles) _London Poulterers_ have no mind to meddle with
+them, which no care in carriage can keep from Putrefaction. That
+_Palate-man_ shall pass in silence, who, being seriously demanded his
+judgment concerning the abilities of a great _Lord_, concluded him a man
+of very weak parts, '_because once he saw him, at a_ great Feast, _feed
+on_ CHICKENS _when there were_ WHEATEARS _on the Table_.' I will adde no
+more in praise of this _Bird_, for fear some _female Reader_ may fall in
+_longing_ for it, and unhappily be disappointed of her desire." A
+contemporary of Fuller, John Taylor, from whom I have already quoted,
+and shall quote again, thus unscientifically dismisses the wheatear in
+one of his doggerel narratives:--
+
+
+     Six weeks or thereabouts they are catch'd there,
+     And are well-nigh 11 months God knows where.
+
+
+As a matter of fact, the winter home of the wheatear is Africa.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHEPHERDS' TRAPS]
+
+The capture of wheatears--mostly illegally by nets--still continues in a
+very small way to meet a languid demand, but the Sussex ortolan, as the
+little bird was sometimes called, has passed from the bill of fare.
+Wheatears (which, despite Fuller, have no connection with ears of wheat,
+the word signifying white tail) still abound, skimming over the turf in
+little groups; but they no longer fly towards the dinner table. The best
+and most interesting description that I know of the old manner of taking
+them, is to be found in Mr. W. H. Hudson's _Nature in Downland_. The
+season began in July, when the little fat birds rest on the Downs on
+their way from Scotland and northern England to their winter home, and
+lasted through September. In July, says Mr. Hudson, the "Shepherds made
+their 'coops,' as their traps were called--a T-shaped trench about
+fourteen inches long, over which the two long narrow sods cut neatly out
+of the turf were adjusted, grass downwards. A small opening was left at
+the end for ingress, and there was room in the passage for the bird to
+pass through towards the chinks of light coming from the two ends of the
+cross passage. At the inner end of the passage a horse-hair springe was
+set, by which the bird was caught by the neck as it passed in, but the
+noose did not as a rule strangle the bird. On some of the high downs
+near the coast, notably at Beachy Head, at Birling Gap, at Seaford, and
+in the neighbourhood of Rottingdean, the shepherds made so many coops,
+placed at small distances apart, that the Downs in some places looked as
+if they had been ploughed. In September, when the season was over, the
+sods were carefully put back, roots down, in the places, and the smooth
+green surface was restored to the hills."
+
+On bright clear days few birds would be caught, but in showery weather
+the traps would all be full; this is because when the sun is obscured
+wheatears are afraid and take refuge under stones or in whatever hole
+may offer. The price of each wheatear was a penny, and it was the
+custom of the persons in the neighbourhood who wanted them for dinner to
+visit the traps, take out the birds and leave the money in their place.
+The shepherd on returning would collect his gains and reset the traps.
+Near Brighton, however, most of the shepherds caught only for dealers;
+and one firm, until some twenty years ago, maintained the practice of
+giving an annual supper at the end of the season, at which the shepherds
+would be paid in the mass for their spoil.
+
+[Sidenote: A RECORD BAG]
+
+An old shepherd, who had been for years on Westside Farm near Brighton,
+spoke thus, in 1882, as Mr. Borrer relates in his _Birds of
+Sussex_:--"The most I ever caught in one day was thirteen dozen, but we
+thought it a good day if we caught three or four dozen. We sold them to
+a poulterer at Brighton, who took all we could catch in a season at
+18_d._ a dozen. From what I have heard from old shepherds, it cannot be
+doubted that they were caught in much greater numbers a century ago than
+of late. I have heard them speak of an immense number being taken in one
+day by a shepherd at East Dean, near Beachy Head. I think they said he
+took nearly a hundred dozen, so many that they could not thread them on
+crow-quills in the usual manner, but he took off his round frock and
+made a sack of it to put them into, and his wife did the same with her
+petticoat. This must have happened when there was a great flight. Their
+numbers now are so decreased that some shepherds do not set up any
+coops, as it does not pay for the trouble."
+
+[Sidenote: THE LARK-GLASS]
+
+Although wheatears are no longer caught, the Brighton bird-catcher is a
+very busy man. Goldfinches fall in extraordinary plenty to his nets. A
+bird-catcher told Mr. Borrer that he once caught eleven dozen of them at
+one haul, and in 1860 the annual take at Worthing was 1,154 dozen. Larks
+are also caught in great numbers, also with nets, the old system still
+practised in France, of luring them with glasses, having become
+obsolete. Knox has an interesting description of the lark-glass and its
+uses:--"A piece of wood about a foot and a half long, four inches deep,
+and three inches wide, is planed off on two sides so as to resemble the
+roof of a well-known toy, yclept a Noah's ark, but, more than twice as
+long. In the sloping sides are set several bits of looking-glass. A long
+iron spindle, the lower end of which is sharp and fixed in the ground,
+passes freely through the centre; on this the instrument turns, and even
+spins rapidly when a string has been attached and is pulled by the
+performer, who generally stands at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards
+from the decoy. The reflection of the sun's rays from these little
+revolving mirrors seems to possess a mysterious attraction for the
+larks, for they descend in great numbers from a considerable height in
+the air, hover over the spot, and suffer themselves to be shot at
+repeatedly without attempting to leave the field or to continue their
+course."
+
+To return to Rottingdean, it was above the village, seven hundred years
+ago, that a "sore scrymmysche" occurred between the French and the
+Cluniac prior of Lewes. The prior was defeated and captured, but the
+nature of his resistance decided the enemy that it was better perhaps to
+retreat to their boats. The holy man, although worsted, thus had the
+satisfaction of having proved to the King that a Cluniac monk in this
+country, was not, as was supposed at court, necessarily on the side of
+England's foes, even though they were of his own race.
+
+According to the scheme of this book, we should now return to Brighton;
+but, as I have said, the right use to which to put Rottingdean is as the
+starting point for a day among the hills. Once out and above the
+village, the world is your own. A conspiracy to populate a part of the
+Downs near the sea, a mile or so to the east of Rottingdean, seems
+gloriously to have failed, but what was intended may be learned from the
+skeleton roads that, duly fenced in, disfigure the turf. They even have
+names, these unlovely parallelograms: one is Chatsworth Avenue, and
+Ambleside Avenue another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SHOREHAM
+
+     Hove the impeccable--The Aldrington of the past--A digression on
+     seaports--Old Shoreham and history--Mr. Swinburne's poem--A baby
+     saint--Successful bribery--The Adur--Old Shoreham church and
+     bridge.
+
+
+The cliffs that make the coast between Newhaven and Brighton so
+attractive slope gradually to level ground at the Aquarium and never
+reappear in Sussex on the Channel's edge again, although in the east
+they rise whiter and higher, with a few long gaps, all the way to Dover.
+It is partly for this reason that the walk from Brighton to Shoreham has
+no beauty save of the sea. Hove, which used to be a disreputable little
+smuggling village sufficiently far from Brighton for risks to be run
+with safety, is now the well-ordered home of wealthy rectitude. Mrs.
+Grundy's sea-side home is here. Hove is, perhaps, the genteelest town in
+the world, although once, only a poor hundred years ago, there was no
+service in the church on a certain Sunday, because, as the clerk
+informed the complaisant vicar, "The pews is full of tubs and the pulpit
+full of tea"--a pleasant fact to reflect upon during Church Parade amid
+the gay yet discreet prosperity of the Brunswick Lawns.
+
+[Illustration: _New Shoreham Church._]
+
+West of Hove, and between that town and Portslade-by-Sea, is Aldrington.
+Aldrington is now new houses and brickfields. Thirty years ago it was
+naught. But five hundred years ago it was the principal township in
+these parts, and Brighthelmstone a mere insignificant cluster of hovels.
+Centuries earlier it was more important still, for, according to some
+authorities, it was the Portus Adurni of the Romans. The river Adur,
+which now enters the sea between Shoreham and Southwick, once flowed
+along the line of the present canal and the Wish Pond, and so out into
+the sea. I have seen it stated that the mouth of the river was even more
+easterly still--somewhere opposite the Norfolk Hotel at Brighton; but
+this may be fanciful and can now hardly be proven. The suggestion,
+however, adds interest to a walk on the otherwise unromantic Brunswick
+Lawns. In those days the Roman ships, entering the river here, would
+sail up as far as Bramber. Between the river and the sea were then some
+two miles--possibly more--of flat meadow land, on which Aldrington was
+largely built. Over the ruins of that Aldrington the Channel now washes.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LIFE OF A HARBOUR]
+
+Beyond Aldrington is Portslade, with a pretty inland village on the
+hill; beyond Portslade is Southwick, notable for its green; and beyond
+Southwick is Shoreham. Southwick and Shoreham both have that interest
+which can never be wanting to the seaport that has seen better days. The
+life of a harbour, whatever its state of decay, is eternally absorbing;
+and in Shoreham harbour one gets such life at its laziest. The smell of
+tar; the sound of hammers; the laughter and whistling of the loafers;
+the continuous changing of the tide; the opening of the lock gates; the
+departure of the tug; its triumphant return, leading in custody a
+timber-laden barque from the Baltic, a little self-conscious and
+ashamed, as if caught red-handed in iniquity by this fussy little
+officer; the independent sailing of a grimy steamer bound for Sunderland
+and more coal; the elaborate wharfing of the barque:--all these things
+on a hot still day can exercise an hypnotic influence more real and
+strange than the open sea. The romance and mystery of the sea may indeed
+be more intimately near one on a harbour wharf than on the deck of a
+liner in mid-ocean.
+
+Shoreham has its place in history. Thence as we have seen, sailed
+Charles II. in Captain Tattersall's _Enterprise_. Four hundred and
+fifty years earlier King John landed here with his army, when he came to
+succeed to the English throne. In the reign of Edward III. Shoreham
+supplied twenty-six ships to the Navy: but in the fifteenth century the
+sea began an encroachment on the bar which disclassed the harbour. It is
+now unimportant, most of the trade having passed to Newhaven; but in its
+days of prosperity great cargoes of corn and wine were landed here from
+the Continent.
+
+When people now say Shoreham they mean New Shoreham, but Old Shoreham is
+the parent. Old Shoreham, however, declined to village state when the
+present harbour was made.
+
+[Sidenote: MR. SWINBURNE'S POEM]
+
+New Shoreham church, quite the noblest in the county, dates probably
+from about 1100. It was originally the property of the Abbey of Saumur,
+to whom it was presented, together with Old Shoreham church, by William
+de Braose, the lord of Bramber Castle. It is New Shoreham Church which
+Mr. Swinburne had in mind (or so I imagine) in his noble poem "On the
+South Coast":--
+
+
+     Strong as time, and as faith sublime,--clothed round with shadows
+         of hopes and fears,
+     Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of
+         prayers and tears,--
+     Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and
+         waning years.
+
+     Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that
+         glooms and glows,
+     Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,
+     Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a
+         straight stem grows.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Stately stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar
+         and near,
+     Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the
+         seaboard here;
+     Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that
+         the dawn holds dear.
+
+     Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn, on the
+         low green lea,
+     Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred, silent and strange
+         and free,
+     Wild and wet with its rills; but yet more fair falls dawn on the
+         fairer sea.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Rose-red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the
+         first ray peers;
+     Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham, crowned with
+         the grace of years;
+
+
+[Illustration: _Old Shoreham Bridge._]
+
+[Sidenote: A SHOREHAM EPITAPH]
+
+In the churchyard there was once (and may be still, but I did not find
+it) an epitaph on a child of eight months, in the form of a dialogue
+between the deceased and its parents. It contained these lines:--
+
+
+     "'I trust in Christ,' the blessed babe replied,
+     Then smil'd, then sigh'd, then clos'd its eyes and died."
+
+
+[Illustration: _Old Shoreham Church._]
+
+Shoreham's notoriety as a pocket borough--it returned two members to
+Parliament, who were elected in the north transept of the church--came
+to a head in 1701, when the naive means by which Mr. Gould had proved
+his fitness were revealed. It seemed that Mr. Gould, who had never been
+to Shoreham before, directed the crier to give notice with his bell that
+every voter who came to the King's Arms would receive a guinea in which
+to drink Mr. Gould's good health. This fact being made public by the
+defeated candidate, Mr. Gould was unseated. At the following election,
+such was the enduring power of the original guinea, he was elected
+again.
+
+After the life of the harbour, the chief interest of Shoreham is its
+river, the Adur, a yellow, sluggish, shallow stream, of great width near
+the town, which at low tide dwindles into a streamlet trickling through
+a desert of mud, but at the full has the beauty of a lake. Mr.
+Swinburne, in the same poem from which I have been quoting, thus
+describes the river at evening:--
+
+
+     Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a
+         flower that spreads,
+     Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous
+         oyster-beds,
+     Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that
+         the sundown sheds.
+
+
+[Sidenote: MR. HENLEY'S POEM]
+
+To the Adur belongs also another lyric. It is printed in _Hawthorn and
+Lavender_, to which I have already referred, and is one of Mr. Henley's
+most characteristic and remarkable poems:--
+
+
+     In Shoreham River, hurrying down
+     To the live sea,
+     By working, marrying, breeding, Shoreham Town,
+     Breaking the sunset's wistful and solemn dream,
+     An old, black rotter of a boat
+     Past service to the labouring, tumbling flote,
+     Lay stranded in mid-stream;
+     With a horrid list, a frightening lapse from the line,
+     That made me think of legs and a broken spine;
+     Soon, all too soon,
+     Ungainly and forlorn to lie
+     Full in the eye
+     Of the cynical, discomfortable moon
+     That, as I looked, stared from the fading sky,
+     A clown's face flour'd for work. And by and by
+     The wide-winged sunset wanned and waned;
+     The lean night-wind crept westward, chilling and sighing;
+     The poor old hulk remained,
+     Stuck helpless in mid-ebb. And I knew why--
+     Why, as I looked, my heart felt crying.
+     For, as I looked, the good green earth seemed dying--
+     Dying or dead;
+     And, as I looked on the old boat, I said:--
+     "_Dear God, it's I!_"
+
+
+The Adur is no longer the home of birds that once it was, but in the
+early morning one may still see there many of the less common water
+fowl. The road to Portsmouth is carried across the Adur by the Norfolk
+Suspension Bridge, to cross which one must pay a toll,--not an
+unpleasant reminder of earlier days.
+
+Old Shoreham, a mile up the river, is notable for its wooden bridge
+across the Adur to the Old Sussex Pad, at one time a famous inn for
+smugglers. Few Royal Academy exhibitions are without a picture of Old
+Shoreham Bridge and the quiet cruciform church at its eastward end.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LOYAL CLERK]
+
+A pleasant story tells how, in some Sussex journey, William IV. and his
+queen chanced to be passing through Shoreham, coming from Chichester to
+Lewes, one Sunday morning. The clerk of Old Shoreham church caught sight
+through the window of the approaching cavalcade, and leaping to his
+feet, stopped the sermon by announcing: "It is my solemn duty to inform
+you that their Majesties the King and Queen are just now crossing the
+bridge." Thereupon the whole congregation jumped up and ran out to show
+their loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE DEVIL'S DYKE AND HURSTPIERPOINT
+
+     Sussex and Leith Hill--The Dyke hill--Two recollections--Bustard
+     hunting on the Downs--The Queen of the gipsies--The Devil in
+     Sussex--The feeble legend of the
+     Dyke--Poynings--Newtimber--Pyecombe and shepherds' crooks--A
+     Patcham smuggler--Wolstonbury--Danny--An old Sussex
+     diary--Fish-culture in the past--Thomas Marchant's Sunday
+     head-aches--Albourne and Bishop Juxon--Twineham and Squire
+     Stapley--Zoological remedies--How to make oatmeal pudding.
+
+
+[Illustration: _Poynings, from the Devil's Dyke._]
+
+Had the hill above the Devil's Dyke--for the Dyke itself wins only a
+passing glance--been never popularised, thousands of Londoners, and many
+of the people of Brighton, would probably never have seen the Weald from
+any eminence at all. The view is bounded north and west only by hills:
+on the north by the North Downs, with Leith Hill standing forward, as if
+advancing to meet a southern champion, and in the west, Blackdown, Hind
+Head and the Hog's Back. The patchwork of the Weald is between. The view
+from the Dyke Hill, looking north, is comparable to that from Leith
+Hill, looking south; and every day in fine weather there are tourists on
+both of these altitudes gazing towards each other. The worst slight that
+Sussex ever had to endure, so far as my reading goes, is in Hughson's
+_London ... and its Neighbourhood_, 1808, where the view from Leith Hill
+is described. After stating that the curious stranger on the summit
+"feels sensations as we may suppose Adam to have felt when he
+instantaneously burst into existence and the beauties of Eden struck his
+all-wondering eyes," Mr. Hughson describes the prospect. "It commands
+a view of the county of Surrey, part of Hampshire, Berkshire, Nettlebed
+in Oxfordshire, some parts of Bucks, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Kent and
+Essex; and, by the help of a glass, Wiltshire." Not a word of Sussex.
+
+[Sidenote: A SEA OF MIST]
+
+The wisest course for the non-gregarious traveller is to leave the Dyke
+on the right, and, crossing the Ladies' Golf Links, gain Fulking Hill,
+from which the view is equally fine (save for lacking a little in the
+east) and where there is peace and isolation. I remember sitting one
+Sunday morning on Fulking Hill when a white mist like a sea filled the
+Weald, washing the turf slopes twenty feet or so below me. In the depths
+of this ocean, as it were, could be heard faintly the noises of the
+farms and the chime of submerged bells. Suddenly a hawk shot up and
+disappeared again, like a leaping fish.
+
+The same spot was on another occasion the scene of a superb effort of
+courageous tenacity. I met a large hare steadily breasting the hill.
+Turning neither to the right nor left it was soon out of sight over the
+crest. Five or more minutes later there appeared in view, on the hare's
+trail, a very tired little fox terrier not much more than half the size
+of the hare. He also turned aside neither to the right nor the left, but
+panted wearily yet bravely past me, and so on, over the crest, after his
+prey. I waited for some time but the terrier never came back. Such was
+the purpose depicted on his countenance that I can believe he is
+following still.
+
+On these Downs, near the Dyke, less than a century ago the Great Bustard
+used to be hunted with greyhounds. Mr. Borrer tells us in the _Birds of
+Sussex_ that his grandfather (who died in 1844) sometimes would take
+five or six in a morning. They fought savagely and more than once
+injured the hounds.
+
+Enterprise has of late been at work at the Dyke. A cable railway crosses
+the gully at a dizzy height, a lift brings travellers from the Weald, a
+wooden cannon of exceptional calibre threatens the landscape, and
+pictorial advertisements of the Devil and his domain may be seen at most
+of the Sussex stations. Ladies also play golf where, when first I knew
+it, one could walk unharmed. A change that is to be regretted is the
+exile to the unromantic neighbourhood of the Dyke Station of the Queen
+of the Gipsies, a swarthy ringletted lady of peculiarly comfortable
+exterior who, splendid (yet a little sinister) in a scarlet shawl and
+ponderous gold jewels, used once to emerge from a tent beside the Dyke
+inn and allot husbands fair or dark. She was an astute reader of her
+fellows, with an eye too searching to be deceived by the removal of
+tell-tale rings. A lucky shot in respect to a future ducal husband of a
+young lady now a duchess, of the accuracy of which she was careful to
+remind you, increased her reputation tenfold in recent years. Her name
+is Lee, and of her title of Queen of the Gipsies there is, I believe,
+some justification.
+
+[Sidenote: "HE"]
+
+Sussex abounds in evidences of the Devil's whimsical handiwork, although
+in ordinary conversation Sussex rustics are careful not to speak his
+name. They say "he." Mr. Parish, in his _Dictionary of the Sussex
+Dialect_, gives an example of the avoidance of the dread name: "'In the
+Down there's a golden calf buried; people know very well where it is--I
+could show you the place any day.' 'Then why don't they dig it up? 'Oh,
+it's not allowed: _he_ wouldn't let them.' 'Has any one ever tried?' 'Oh
+yes, but it's never there when you look; _he_ moves it away.'" His
+punchbowl may be seen here, his footprints there; but the greatest of
+his enterprises was certainly the Dyke. His purpose was to submerge or
+silence the irritating churches of the Weald, by digging a ditch that
+should let in the sea. He began one night from the North side, at
+Saddlescombe, and was working very well until he caught sight of the
+beams of a candle which an old woman had placed in her window. Being a
+Devil of Sussex rather than of Miltonic invention, he was not clever,
+and taking the candle light for the break of dawn, he fled and never
+resumed the labour. That is the very infirm legend that is told and sold
+at the Dyke.
+
+[Sidenote: HANGLETON]
+
+I might just mention that the little church which one sees from the Dyke
+railway, standing alone on the hill side, is Hangleton. Dr. Kenealy, who
+defended the Claimant, is buried there. The hamlet of Hangleton, which
+may be seen in the distance below, once possessed a hunting lodge of the
+Coverts of Slaugham, which, after being used as labourers' cottages, has
+now disappeared. The fine Tudor mansion of the Bellinghams', now
+transformed into a farm house, although it has been much altered, still
+retains many original features. In the kitchen, no doubt once the hall,
+on an oak screen, are carved the Commandments, followed by this
+ingenious motto, an exercise on the letter E:
+
+
+     Persevere, ye perfect men,
+     Ever keep these precepts ten.
+
+
+[Illustration: _Hangleton House._]
+
+From the Dyke hill one is within easy walking distance of many Wealden
+villages. Immediately at the north end of the Dyke itself is Poynings,
+with its fine grey cruciform church raising an embattled tower among
+the trees on its mound. It has been conjectured from the similarity of
+this beautiful church to that of Alfriston that they may have had the
+same architect. Poynings (now called Punnings) was of importance in
+Norman times, and was the seat of William FitzRainalt, whose descendants
+afterwards took the name of de Ponyngs and one of whom was ennobled as
+Baron de Ponyngs. In the fifteenth century the direct line was merged
+into that of Percy. The ruins of Ponyngs Place, the baronial mansion,
+are still traceable.
+
+Following the road to the west, under the hills, we come first to
+Fulking (where one may drink at a fountain raised by a brewer to the
+glory of God and in honour of John Ruskin), then to Edburton (where the
+leaden font, one of three in Sussex, should be noted), then to Truleigh,
+all little farming hamlets shadowed by the Downs, and so to Beeding and
+Bramber, or, striking south, to Shoreham.
+
+[Sidenote: NEWTIMBER]
+
+If, instead of turning into Poynings, one ascends the hill on the other
+side of the stream, a climb of some minutes, with a natural amphitheatre
+on the right, brings one to the wooded northern escarpment of
+Saddlescombe North Hill, or Newtimber Hill, which offers a view little
+inferior to that of the Dyke. At Saddlescombe, by the way, lives one of
+the most learned Sussex ornithologists of the day, and a writer upon the
+natural history of the county (so cavalierly treated in this book!), for
+whose quick eye and descriptive hand the readers of _Blackwood_ have
+reason to be grateful. Immediately beneath Newtimber Hill lies
+Newtimber, consisting of a house or two, a moated grange, and a little
+church, which, though only a few yards from the London road, is so
+hidden that it might be miles from everywhere. On the grass bank of the
+bostel descending through the hanger to Newtimber, I counted on one
+spring afternoon as many as a dozen adders basking in the sun. We are
+here, though so near Brighton, in country where the badger is still
+found, while the Newtimber woods are famous among collectors of moths.
+
+[Sidenote: PYECOMBE CROOKS]
+
+If you are for the Weald it is by this bostel that you should descend,
+but if still for the Downs turn to the east along the summit, and you
+will come to Pyecombe, a straggling village on each side of the London
+road just at the head of Dale Hill. Pyecombe has lost its ancient fame
+as the home of the best shepherds' crooks, but the Pyecombe crook for
+many years was unapproached. The industry has left Sussex: crooks are
+now made in the north of England and sold over shop counters. I say
+"industry" wrongly, for what was truly an industry for a Pyecombe
+blacksmith is a mere detail in an iron factory, since the number of
+shepherds does not increase and one crook will serve a lifetime and
+more. An old shepherd at Pyecombe, talking confidentially on the subject
+of crooks, complained that the new weapon as sold at Lewes, although
+nominally on the Pyecombe pattern, is a "numb thing." The chief reason
+which he gave was that the maker was out of touch with the man who was
+to use it. His own crook (like that of Richard Jefferies' shepherd
+friend) had been fashioned from the barrel of an old muzzle-loader. The
+present generation, he added, is forgetting how to make everything: why,
+he had neighbours, smart young fellows, too, who could not even make
+their own clothes.
+
+Pyecombe is but a few miles from Brighton, which may easily be reached
+from it. A short distance south of the village is the Plough Inn, the
+point at which the two roads to London--that by way of Clayton Hill,
+Friar's Oak, Cuckfield, Balcombe and Redhill, and the other (on which we
+are now standing) by way of Dale Hill, Bolney, Hand Cross, Crawley and
+Reigate--become one.
+
+On the way to Brighton from the Plough one passes through Patcham, a
+dusty village that for many years has seen too many bicycles, and now is
+in the way of seeing too many motor cars. In the churchyard is, or was,
+a tomb bearing the following inscription, which may be quoted both as a
+reminder of the more stirring experiences to which the Patcham people
+were subject a hundred years ago, and also as an example of the truth
+which is only half a truth:
+
+[Sidenote: SMUGGLER AND EXEMPLAR]
+
+     Sacred to the memory of Daniel Scales, who was unfortunately shot
+     on Thursday Evening, Nov. 7, 1796.
+
+
+     Alas! swift flew the fatal lead
+     Which pierced through the young man's head,
+     He instant fell, resigned his breath,
+     And closed his languid eyes in death.
+     All ye who do this stone draw near,
+     Oh! pray let fall the pitying tear.
+     From the sad instance may we all
+     Prepare to meet Jehovah's call.
+
+
+The facts of the case bear some likeness to the death of Mr. Bardell and
+Serjeant Buzfuz's reference to that catastrophe. Daniel Scales was a
+desperate smuggler who, when the fatal lead pierced him, was heavily
+laden with booty. He was shot through the head only as a means of
+preventing a similar fate befalling his slayer.
+
+Just beyond Patcham, as we approach Brighton, is the narrow chalk lane
+on the left which leads to the Lady's Mile, the beginning of a superb
+stretch of turf around an amphitheatre in the hills by which one may
+gallop all the way to the Clayton mills. The grass ride extends to
+Lewes.
+
+Preston, once a village with an independent life, is now Brighton; but
+nothing can harm its little English church, noticeable for a fresco of
+the murder of Thomas a Becket, a representation dating probably from the
+reign of Edward I.
+
+This, however, is a digression, and we must return to Pyecombe in order
+to climb Wolstonbury--the most mountainous of the hills in this part,
+and indeed, although far from the highest, perhaps the noblest in mien
+of the whole range, by virtue of its isolation and its conical shape.
+The earthworks on Wolstonbury, although supposed to be of Celtic origin,
+were probably utilised by the Romans for military purposes. More than
+any of the Downs does Wolstonbury bring before one the Roman occupation
+of our country.
+
+[Sidenote: DANNY]
+
+Immediately below Wolstonbury, on the edge of the Weald, is Danny, an
+Elizabethan house, to-day the seat of the Campions, but two hundred and
+more years ago the seat of Peter Courthope, to whom John Ray dedicated
+his _Collection of English Words not generally used_, and before then
+the property of Sir Simon de Pierpoint. The park is small and without
+deer, but the house has a facade of which one can never tire. I once saw
+_Twelfth Night_ performed in its gardens, and it was difficult to
+believe that Shakespeare had not the spot in mind when he wrote that
+play.
+
+[Illustration: _Malthouse Farm, Hurstpierpoint._]
+
+The Danny drive brings us to Hurstpierpoint, or Hurst as it is generally
+called, which is now becoming a suburb of Brighton and thus somewhat
+losing its character, but which the hills will probably long keep sweet.
+James Hannington, Bishop of Equatorial East Africa, who was murdered by
+natives in 1885, was born here; here lived Richard Weeks, the antiquary;
+and here to-day is the home of Mr. Mitten, most learned of Sussex
+botanists.
+
+To Hurst belongs one of the little Sussex squires to whose diligence as
+a diarist we are indebted for much entertaining knowledge of the past.
+Little Park, now the property of the Hannington family, where Thomas
+Marchant, the diarist in question, lived, and kept his journal between
+1714 and 1728, is to the north of the main street, lying low. The
+original document I have not seen, but from passages printed by the
+Sussex Archaeological Society I borrow a few extracts for the light they
+throw on old customs and social life.
+
+[Sidenote: FISH-BREEDING]
+
+
+     "October 8th, 1714. Paid 4_s._ at Lewes for 1/4 lb., of tea; 5_d._
+     for a quire of paper; and 6_d._ for two mousetraps.
+
+     "October 29th, 1714. Went to North Barnes near Homewood Gate to see
+     the pond fisht. I bought all the fish of a foot long and upwards at
+     50_s._ per C. I am to give Mrs. Dabson 200 store fish, over and
+     above the aforesaid bargain; but she is to send to me for them.
+
+     "October 30th, 1714. We fetched 244 Carps in three Dung Carts from
+     a stew of Parson Citizen at Street; being brought thither last
+     night out of the above pond.
+
+     "October 31st, 1714 (Sunday). I could not go to Church, being
+     forced to stay at home to look after, and let down fresh water to,
+     the fish; they being--as I supposed--sick, because they lay on the
+     surface of the pond and were easily taken out. But towards night
+     they sunk."
+
+
+The Little Park ponds still exist, but the practice of breeding fish has
+passed. In Arthur Young's _General View of the Agriculture of the County
+of Sussex_, 1808, quoted elsewhere in this book, is a chapter on fish,
+wherein he writes: "A Mr. Fenn of London, has long rented, and is the
+sole monopolizer of, all the fish that are sold in Sussex. Carp is the
+chief stock; but tench and perch, eels and pike are raised. A stream
+should always flow through the pond; and a marley soil is the best. Mr.
+Milward has drawn carp from his marl-pits 25lb. a brace, and two inches
+of fat upon them, but then he feeds with pease. When the waters are
+drawn off and re-stocked, it is done with stores of a year old, which
+remain four years: the carp will then be 12 or 13 inches long, and if
+the water is good, 14 or 15. The usual season for drawing the water is
+either Autumn or Spring: the sale is regulated by measure, from the eye
+to the fork of the tail. At twelve inches, carp are worth 50_s._ and
+3_l._ per hundred; at fifteen inches, 6_l._; at eighteen inches, 8_l._
+and 9_l._ A hundred stores will stock an acre; or 35 brace, 10 or 12
+inches long, are fully sufficient for a breeding pond. The first year
+they will be three inches long; second year, seven; third year, eleven
+or twelve; fourth year, fourteen or fifteen. This year they breed."
+
+[Sidenote: THOMAS MARCHANT'S HEADACHES]
+
+Although fish-breeding is not what it was, many of the Sussex ponds are
+still regularly dragged, and the proceeds sold in advance to a London
+firm. Sometimes the purchaser wins in the gamble, sometimes the seller.
+The fish are removed alive, in large tanks, and sold as they are wanted,
+chiefly for Jewish tables. But we must return to Thomas Marchant:--
+
+
+     "January 16th (Sunday) 1715. I was not at church having a bad
+     headache.
+
+     "January 25th, 1715. We had a trout for supper, two feet two inches
+     long from eye to fork, and six inches broad; it weighed
+     ten-and-a-half pounds. It was caught in the Albourne Brook, near
+     Trussell House.... We staid very late and drank enough.
+
+     "April 15th, 1715. Paid my uncle Courtness 15_d._ for a small
+     bottle of Daffey's Elixir.
+
+     "July 18th, 1715. I went to Bolney and agreed with Edw. Jenner to
+     dig sandstone for setting up my father's tombstone, at 5_s._ I gave
+     him 6_d._ to spend in drink that he might be more careful.
+
+     "August 7th, (Sunday) 1715. I was not at church as my head ached
+     very much.
+
+     "November 22nd, 1716. Fisht the great pond and put 220 of the
+     biggest carp into the new pond, and 18 of the biggest tench. Put
+     also 358 store carp into the flat stew, and 36 tench; and also 550
+     very small carp into a hole in the low field.
+
+     "November 24th, 1716. Fisht the middle pond. Put 66 large carp into
+     the new pond, and 380 store tench into the flat stew, and 12 large
+     carp, 10 large tench, and 57 middle sized tench into the hovel
+     field stew.
+
+     "June 12th, 1717. I was at the cricket match at Dungton Gate
+     towards night.
+
+     "January 24th, 1718. A mountebank came to our towne to-day. He
+     calls himself Dr. Richard Harness. Mr. Scutt and I drank tea with
+     the tumbler. Of his tricks I am no judge: but he appears to me to
+     play well on the fiddle.
+
+     "January 30th (Friday), 1719. King Charles' Martyrdom. I was not at
+     church, as my head ached very much.
+
+     "February 28th, 1719. We had news of the Chevalier de St. George,
+     the Pretender, being taken and carried into the Castle of Milan.
+
+     "September 19th, 1719. John Parsons began his year last Tuesday. He
+     is to shave my face twice a week, and my head once a fortnight, and
+     I am to give him 100 faggots per annum.
+
+     "September 30th, 1719. Talked to Mrs. Beard, for Allan Savage,
+     about her horse that was seized by the officers at Brighton running
+     brandy.
+
+     "December 5th, 1719. My Lord Treep put a ferral and pick to my
+     stick. [My Lord Treep was a tinker named Treep who lived in Treep's
+     Lane. My Lord Burt, who is also mentioned in the diary, was a
+     farrier.]
+
+     "July 28th, 1721. Paid Harry Wolvin of Twineham, for killing an
+     otter in our parish. [An otter, of course, was a serious enemy to
+     the owner of stews and ponds.]
+
+     "February 7th, 1722. Will and Jack went to Lewes to see a prize
+     fight between Harris and another.
+
+     "September 18th, 1727. Dined at Mr. Hazelgrove's and cheapened a
+     tombstone."
+
+
+Thomas Marchant was buried September 17, 1728.
+
+Less than two miles west of Hurstpierpoint is Albourne, so hidden away
+that one might know this part of the country well and yet be continually
+overlooking it. The western high road between Brighton and London passes
+within a stone's throw of Albourne, but one never suspects the
+existence, close by, of this retired village, so compact and virginal
+and exquisitely old fashioned. It is said that after the execution of
+Charles I Bishop Juxon lived for a while at Albourne Place during the
+Civil War, and once escaped the Parliamentary soldiers by disguising
+himself as a bricklayer. There is a priest's hiding hole in the house.
+
+[Sidenote: A GIANT TROUT]
+
+Some three miles north of Albourne is Twineham, another village which,
+situated only on a by-road midway between two lines of railway, has also
+preserved its bloom. Here, at the end of the seventeenth and beginning
+of the eighteenth centuries, at Hickstead Place, a beautiful Tudor
+mansion that still stands, lived Richard Stapley, another of the Sussex
+diarists whose MSS. have been selected for publication by the Sussex
+Archaeological Society. I quote a few passages:--
+
+
+     "In ye month of November, 1692, there was a trout found in ye
+     Poyningswish, in Twineham, which was 29 inches long from ye top of
+     ye nose to ye tip of ye taile; and John fflint had him and eat him.
+     He was left in a low slank after a fflood, and ye water fell away
+     from him, and he died. The fish I saw at John fflint's house ye
+     Sunday after they had him: and at night they boiled him for supper,
+     but could not eat one halfe of him; and there was six of them at
+     supper; John fflint and his wife Jane, and four of their children;
+     and ye next day they all fell on him again, and compassed him."
+
+
+Here we have the spectacle of a good man struggling with
+accuracy:--"August 19th, 1698. Paid Mr. Stheward for Dr. Comber's
+paraphrase on ye Common Prayer, 20_s._ and 6_d._ for carriage. I paid it
+at ye end of ye kitchen table next ye chamber stairs door, and nobody
+in ye room but he and I. No, it was ye end of ye table next ye parlour.
+
+"April 26th, 1709. I bought a salmon-trout of William Lindfield of
+Grubbs, in Bolney, which he caught ye night before in his net, by his
+old orchard, which was wounded by an otter. The trout weighed 11 lbs.
+and 1/2; and was 3 foot 2 inches long from end to end, and but 2 foot 9
+inches between ye eye and ye forke." There is also a record of a salmon
+trout being caught at Bolney early in the last century, which weighed
+22lbs. and was sent to King George IV. at Brighton.
+
+I must quote a prescription from the diary:--"To cure the
+hoopingcough:--get 3 field mice, flaw them, draw them, and roast one of
+them, and let the party afflicted eat it; dry the other two in the oven
+until they crumble to a powder, and put a little of this powder in what
+the patient drinks at night and in the morning." Mice played, and still
+play in remote districts, a large part in the rural pharmacopeia. A
+Sussex doctor once told me that he had directed the mother of a boy at
+Portslade to put some ice in a bag and tie it on the boy's forehead.
+When, the next day, the doctor asked after his patient, the mother
+replied briskly:--"Oh, Tommy's better, but the mice are dead."
+
+[Sidenote: OATMEAL PUDDING]
+
+The Stapley family ate an oatmeal pudding made in the following
+manner:--
+
+
+     Of oats decorticated take two pound,
+     And of new milk enough the same to dround;
+     Of raisins of the sun, ston'd, ounces eight;
+     Of currants, cleanly picked, an equal weight;
+     Of suet, finely sliced, an ounce at least;
+     And six eggs newly taken from the nest;
+     Season this mixture well with salt and spice;
+     Twill make a pudding far exceeding nice;
+     And you may safely feed on it like farmers.
+     For the receipt is learned Dr. Harmer's.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE GOOD HORSE'S REWARD]
+
+Richard Stapley's diary was continued by his son Anthony and grandson
+John. The most pleasing among the printed extracts is this:--"1736, May
+the 21st. The white horse was buried in the saw-pit in the Laine's wood.
+He was aged about thirty-five years, as far as I could find of people
+that knew him foaled. He had been in his time as good a horse as ever
+man was owner of, and he was buried in his skin being a good old
+horse."
+
+[Illustration: _Ditchling._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+DITCHLING
+
+     Stanmer Park and Dr. Johnson--The Roman way down Ditchling
+     Beacon--Sussex folk in London--Jacob's Post--The virtues of
+     gibbets--Mr. John Burgess's diary.
+
+
+Another good walk from Brighton begins with a short railway journey to
+Falmer on the Lewes line. Then strike into Stanmer Park, the seat of the
+Earl of Chichester, a descendant of the famous Sussex Pelhams, with the
+church and the little village of Stanmer on the far edge of it, and so
+up through the hollows and valleys to Ditchling Beacon. Dr. Johnson's
+saying of the Downs about Brighton, that "it was a country so truly
+desolate that if one had a mind to hang oneself for desperation at being
+obliged to live there, it would be difficult to find a tree on which to
+fasten a rope," proves beyond question that his horse never took him
+Stanmer way, for the park is richly wooded.
+
+On Ditchling Beacon, one of the noblest of the Sussex hills and the
+second if not the first in height of all the range (the surveys differ,
+one giving the palm to Duncton) the Romans had a camp, and the village
+of Ditchling may still be gained by the half-subterranean path that our
+conquerors dug, so devised that a regiment might descend into the Weald
+unseen.
+
+[Sidenote: LONDON'S VASTNESS]
+
+Ditchling is a quiet little village on high ground, where Alfred the
+Great once had a park. The church is a very interesting and graceful
+specimen of early English architecture, dating from the 13th century. A
+hundred and more years ago water from a chalybeate spring on the common
+was drunk by Sussex people for rheumatism and other ills; but the spring
+has lost its fame. The village could not well be more out of the
+movement, yet an old lady living in the neighbourhood who, when about to
+visit London for the first time, was asked what she expected to find,
+replied, "Well, I can't exactly tell, but I suppose something like the
+more bustling part of Ditchling." A kindred story is told of a Sussex
+man who, finding himself in London for the first time, exclaimed with
+astonishment--"What a queer large place! Why, it ain't like Newick and
+it ain't like Chailey."
+
+[Illustration: _Old House at Ditchling._]
+
+On Ditchling Common are the protected remains of a stake known as
+Jacob's Post. A stranger requested to supply this piece of wood with the
+origin of its label would probably adventure long before hitting upon
+the right tack; for Jacob, whose name has in this familiar connection a
+popular and almost an endearing sound, was Jacob Harris, a Jew pedlar of
+astonishing turpitude, who, after murdering three persons at an inn on
+Ditchling Common and plundering their house, was hanged at Horsham in
+the year 1734, and afterwards suspended, as a lesson, to the gibbet, of
+which this post--Jacob's Post--is the surviving relic.
+
+[Sidenote: A CURE FOR TOOTHACHE]
+
+All gibbets, it is said, are "good" for something, and a piece of
+Jacob's Post carried on the person is sovran against toothache. A Sussex
+archaeologist tells of an old lady, a resident on Ditchling Common for
+more than eighty years, whose belief in the Post was so sound that her
+pocket contained a splinter of it long after all her teeth had departed.
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN BURGESS'S DIARY]
+
+From extracts from the diary of Mr. John Burgess, tailor, sexton and
+Particular Baptist, of Ditchling, which are given in the Sussex
+Archaeological Collections, I quote here and there:--
+
+    "August 1st, 1785. There was a cricket match at Lingfield Common
+    between Lingfield in Surrey and all the county of Sussex, supposed
+    to be upwards of 2,000 people.
+
+    "June 29th, 1786. Went to Lewes with some wool to Mr. Chatfield,
+    fine wool at 8-5-0 per pack. Went to dinner with Mr. Chatfield. Had
+    boiled Beef, Leg of Lamb and plum Pudden. Stopped there all the
+    afternoon. Mr. Pullin was there; Mr. Trimby and the Curyer, &c., was
+    there. We had a good deal of religious conversation, particularly
+    Mr. Trimby.
+
+    "June 11th, 1787. Spent 3 or 4 hours with some friends in
+    Conversation upon Moral and religious Subjects; the inquiry was the
+    most easy and natural evedences of ye existence and attributes of ye
+    supream Being--in discussing upon the Subject we was nearly agreed
+    and propose meeting again every first monday after the fool Moon to
+    meet at 4 and break-up at 8.
+
+    "March 14th, 1788. Went to Fryersoake to a Bull Bait to Sell My
+    dog. I seld him for 1 guineay upon condition he was Hurt, but as he
+    received no Hurt I took him back again at the same price. We had a
+    good dinner; a round of Beef Boiled, a good piece roasted, a Lag of
+    Mutton and Ham of Pork and plum pudden, plenty of wine and punch.
+
+    "At Brightelmstone:--washed in ye sea."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CUCKFIELD
+
+     Hayward's Heath--Rookwood and the fatal tree--Timothy Burrell and
+     his account books--Old Sussex appetites--Plum-porridge--A luckless
+     lover--The original Merry Andrew--Ancient testators--Bolney's
+     bells--The splendour of the Slaugham Coverts--Hand Cross--Crawley
+     and the new discovery of walking--Lindfield--_Idlehurst_--Richard
+     Turner's epitaph--Ardingly.
+
+
+Hayward's Heath, on the London line, would be our next centre were it
+not so new and suburban. Fortunately Cuckfield, which has two coaching
+inns and many of the signs of the leisurely past, is close by, in the
+midst of very interesting country, with a church standing high on the
+ridge to the south of the town, broadside to the Weald, its spire a
+landmark for miles. Cuckfield Place (a house and park, according to
+Shelley, which abounded in "bits of Mrs. Radcliffe") is described in
+Harrison Ainsworth's _Rookwood_. It was in the avenue leading from the
+gates to the house that that fatal tree stood, a limb of which fell as
+the presage of the death of a member of the family. So runs the legend.
+Knowledge of the tree is, however, disclaimed by the gatekeeper.
+
+[Illustration: _Cuckfield Church._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE COACHMAN'S PLANS]
+
+Ockenden House, in Cuckfield, has been for many years in the possession
+of the Burrell family, one of whom, Timothy Burrell, an ancestor of the
+antiquary, left some interesting account books, which contain in
+addition to figures many curious and sardonic entries and some ingenious
+hieroglyphics. I quote here and there, from the Sussex Archaeological
+Society's extracts, by way of illustrating the life of a Sussex squire
+in those days, 1683-1714:--
+
+1705. "Pay'd Gosmark for making cyder 1 day, whilst John Coachman was to
+be drunk with the carrier's money, by agreement; and I pay'd 2_d._ to
+the glasyer for mending John's casement broken at night by him when he
+was drunk.
+
+"1706. 25th March. Pd. John Coachman by Ned Virgo, that he may be drunk
+all the Easter week, in part of his wages due, _L_1."
+
+[Sidenote: ANCIENT APPETITES]
+
+This was the fare provided on January 1, 1707, for thirteen guests:--
+
+
+     Plumm pottage.                    Plumm pottage.
+     Calves' head and bacon.           Boiled beef, a clod.
+     Goose.                            Two baked puddings.
+     Pig.                              Three dishes of minced
+     Plumm pottage.                      pies.
+     Roast beef, sirloin.              Two capons.
+     Veale, a loin.                    Two dishes of tarts.
+     Goose.                            Two pullets.
+
+
+Plum porridge, it may interest some to know, was made thus: "Take of
+beef-soup made of legs of beef, 12 quarts; if you wish it to be
+particularly good, add a couple of tongues to be boiled therein. Put
+fine bread, sliced, soaked, and crumbled; raisins of the sun, currants
+and pruants two lbs. of each; lemons, nutmegs, mace and cloves are to be
+boiled with it in a muslin bag; add a quart of red wine and let this be
+followed, after half an hour's boiling, by a pint of sack. Put it into a
+cool place and it will keep through Christmas."
+
+Mr. Burrell giving a small dinner to four friends, offered them
+
+
+                         Pease pottage.
+     2 carps. 2 tench.                     Roast leg of mutton.
+     Capon. Pullet.                        Apple pudding.
+     Fried oysters.                        Goos.
+     Baked pudding.                        Tarts. Minced pies.
+
+
+It is perhaps not surprising that the host had occasionally to take the
+waters of Ditchling, which are no longer drunk medicinally, or to dose
+himself with hierae picrae.
+
+One more dinner, this time for four guests, who presumably were more
+worthy of attention:--
+
+
+     A soup take off.
+     Two large carps at the upper end.
+     Pidgeon pie, salad, veal ollaves,
+     Leg of mutton, and cutlets at the lower end.
+     Three rosed chickens.
+     Scotch pancakes, tarts, asparagus.
+     Three green gees at the lower end.
+     In the room of the chickens removed,
+     Four-souced Mackerel.
+     Rasins in cream at the upper end.
+     Calves' foot jelly, dried sweetmeats, calves' foot jelly.
+     Flummery, Savoy cakes.
+     Imperial cream at the lower end.
+
+
+In October, 1709, Mr. Burrell writes in Latin: "From this time I have
+resolved, as long as the dearth of provisions continues, to give to the
+poor who apply for it at the door on Sundays, twelve pounds of beef
+every week, on the 11th of February 4lbs. more, in all 16lbs., and a
+bushel of wheat and half a bushel of barley in 4 weeks."
+
+[Sidenote: MERRY ANDREW]
+
+From Borde Hill to the north-east of Cuckfield, is supposed to have come
+Andrew Boord, the original Merry Andrew. Among the later Boords who
+lived there was George Boord, in whose copy of _Natura Brevium_ and
+_Tenores Novelli_, bound together (given him by John Sackville of
+Chiddingly Park) is written:--
+
+
+     Sidera non tot habet Celum, nec flumina pisces,
+     Quot scelera gerit femina mente dolos.
+                             Dixit Boordus;
+
+
+which Mr. Lower translates:
+
+
+     Quoth Boord, with stars the skies abound,
+       With fish the flowing waters;
+     But far more numerous I have found
+       The tricks of Eve's fair daughters.
+
+
+This Boord would be a relative of the famous Andrew, priest, doctor and
+satirist (1490-1549) who may indeed have been the author of the distich
+above. It is certainly in his vein.
+
+Andrew Boord gave up his vows as a Carthusian on account of their
+"rugorosite," and became a doctor, travelling much on the Continent.
+Several books are known to be his, chief among them the _Dyetary_ and
+_Brevyary of Health_. He wrote also an _Itinerary of England_ and is
+credited by some with the _Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_. Lower
+and Horsfield indeed hold that the Gotham intended was not the
+Nottinghamshire village but Gotham near Pevensey, where Boord had
+property. That he knew something of Sussex is shown by _Boord's Boke of
+Knowledge_, where he mentions the old story, then a new one, that no
+nightingale will sing in St. Leonard's Forest. It is the _Boke of
+Knowledge_ that has for frontispiece the picture of a naked Englishman
+with a pair of shears in one hand and a piece of cloth over the other
+arm, saying:
+
+
+     I am an English man and naked I stand here,
+     Musing in my mund what rayment I shall were;
+     For now I wyll were this, and now I wyl were that;
+     Now I wyl were I cannot tel what.
+
+
+We shall see Andrew again when we come to Pevensey.
+
+[Sidenote: OLD WILLS]
+
+A glimpse of the orderly mind of a pre-Reformation Cuckfield yeoman is
+given in a will quoted recently in the _Sussex Daily News_, in an
+interesting series of articles on the county under the title of
+"Old-time Sussex":
+
+
+     "In the yere of our lorde god 1545. the 26 day of June, I, Thomas
+     Gaston, of the pish of Cukefelde, syke in body, hole, and of ppt
+     [perfect] memorie, ordene and make this my last will and test, in
+     manr. and forme folling.
+
+     Fyrst I bequethe my sowle to Almyghty god or [our] lady St. Mary
+     and all the holy company of heyvyng, my bodie to be buried in the
+     church yarde of Cukefeld.
+
+     It. (item) to the Mother Church of Chichester 4_d._
+
+     It. to the hye alter of Cuckfeld 4_d._
+
+     It. I will have at my buryall 5 masses. In lykewise at my monthes
+     mynd and also at my yerely mynd all the charge of the church set
+     apart I will have in meate and drynke and to pore people 10_s._ at
+     every tyme."
+
+
+The high altar was frequently mentioned favourably in these old wills.
+Another Cuckfield testator, in 1539, left to the high altar, "for tythes
+and oblacions negligently forgotten, sixpence." The same student of the
+_Calendar of Sussex Wills in the District Probate Registry at Lewes,
+between 1541 and 1652_, which the British Record Society have just
+published, copies the following passage from the will of Gerard Onstye,
+in 1568: "To mary my daughter _L_20, the ffeatherbed that I lye upon the
+bolsters and coverlete of tapestaye work with a blankett, 4 payres of
+shetts that is to say four pares of the best flaxon and other 2 payre of
+the best hempen the greate brasse potte that hir mother brought, the
+best bord-clothe (table cloth?) a lynnen whelle (_i.e._, spinning-wheel)
+that was hir mothers, the chaffing dish that hangeth in the parlor."
+
+In those simple days everything was prized. In one of these Sussex
+wills, in 1594, Richard Phearndeane, a labourer, left to his brother
+Stephen his best dublett, his best jerkin and his best shoes, and to
+Bernard Rosse his white dublett, his leathern dublett and his worst
+breeches.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BELLS OF BOLNEY]
+
+Three miles west of Cuckfield is Bolney, just off the London road, a
+village in the southern boundary of St. Leonard's Forest, the key to
+some very rich country. Before the days of bicycles Bolney was
+practically unknown, so retired is it. The church, which has a curious
+pinnacled tower nearly 300 years old, is famous for its bells,
+concerning whose melody Horsfield gives the following piece of counsel:
+"Those who are fond of the silvery tones of bells, may enjoy them to
+perfection, by placing themselves on the margin of a large pond, the
+property of Mr. W. Marshall; the reverberation of the sound, coming off
+the water, is peculiarly striking."
+
+Sixty years ago this sheet of water had an additional attraction. Says
+Mr. Knox, "During the months of May and June, 1843, an osprey was
+observed to haunt the large ponds near Bolney. After securing a fish he
+used to retire to an old tree on the more exposed bank to devour it, and
+about the close of evening was in the habit of flying off towards the
+north-west, sometimes carrying away a prize in his talons if his sport
+had been unusually successful, as if he dreaded being disturbed at his
+repast during the dangerous hours of twilight. Having been shot at
+several times without effect, his visits to these ponds became gradually
+less frequent, but the surrounding covers being unpreserved, and the
+bird itself too wary to suffer a near approach, he escaped the fate of
+many of his congeners, and even re-appeared with a companion early in
+the following September, to whom he seemed to have imparted his salutary
+dread of man--his mortal enemy--for during the short time they remained
+there it was impossible to approach within gunshot of either of them."
+
+The indirect road from Bolney to Hand Cross, through Warninglid and
+Slaugham (parallel with the coaching road), is superb, taking us again
+into the iron country and very near to Leonardslee, which we have
+already seen.
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAGNIFICENT COVERTS]
+
+The glory of Slaugham Place is no more; but one visible sign of it is
+preserved in Lewes, in the Town Hall, in the shape of its old staircase.
+Slaugham Place was the seat of the Covert family, whose estates
+extended, says tradition, "from Southwark to the Sea," and, says the
+more exact Horsfield, from Crawley to Hangleton, above Brighton.
+Slaugham Park used to cover 1200 acres, the church being within it.
+Perhaps nowhere in Sussex is the change so complete as here, and within
+recent times too, for Horsfield quotes, in 1835, the testimony of "an
+aged person, whom the present rector buried about twenty-five years
+back, who used to relate, that he remembered when the family at Slaugham
+Park, or Place, consisted of seventy persons." Horsfield continues, in a
+footnote (the natural receptacle of many of his most interesting
+statements):--"The name of the aged person alluded to was Harding, who
+died at nearly 100. According to his statement, the family were so
+numerous, they kept constantly employed mechanics of every description,
+who resided on the premises. A conduit, which supplied the mansion with
+water, is now used by the inhabitants of the village. The kitchen
+fireplace still remains, of immense size, with the irons that supported
+the cooking apparatus. The arms of the Coverts, with many impalements
+and quarterings, yet remain on the ruins. The principal entrance was
+from the east, and the grand front to the north. The pillars at the
+entrance, fluted, with seats on each side, are still there. According to
+the statement of the above person, there was a chapel attached to the
+mansion at the west part. The mill-pond flowed over nearly 40 acres,
+according to a person's statement who occupied the mill many years." The
+ruins, little changed since Horsfield wrote, stand in a beautiful
+old-world garden, which the traveller must certainly endeavour to enter.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BRIGHTON ROAD]
+
+A mile north of Slaugham is Hand Cross, a Clapham Junction of highways,
+whence Crawley is easily reached. Crawley, however, beyond a noble
+church, has no interest, its distinction being that it is halfway
+between London and Brighton on the high road--its distinction and its
+misfortune. One would be hard put to it to think of a less desirable
+existence than that of dwelling on a dusty road and continually seeing
+people hurrying either from Brighton to London or from London to
+Brighton. Coaches, phaetons, motor cars, bicycles, pass through Crawley
+so numerously as almost to constitute one elongated vehicle, like the
+moving platform at the last Paris Exhibition.
+
+And not only travellers on wheels; for since the fashion for walking
+came in, Crawley has had new excitements, or monotonies, in the shape of
+walking stockbrokers, walking butchers, walking auctioneers' clerks,
+walking Austrians pushing their families in wheelbarrows, walking
+bricklayers carrying hods of bricks, walking acrobats on stilts--all
+striving to get to Brighton within a certain time, and all accompanied
+by judges, referees, and friends. At Hand Cross, lower on the road, the
+numbers diminish; but every competitor seems to be able to reach
+Crawley, perhaps because the railway station adjoins the high road. It
+was not, for example, until he reached Crawley that the Austrian's
+wheelbarrow broke down.
+
+[Sidenote: LINDFIELD]
+
+On the other side of the line, two miles north-east of Hayward's Heath,
+is Lindfield, with its fine common of geese, its generous duck-pond, and
+wide straggling street of old houses and new (too many new, to my mind),
+rising easily to the graceful Early English church with its slender
+shingled spire. Just beyond the church is one of the most beautiful of
+timbered houses in Sussex, or indeed in England. When I first knew this
+house it was a farm in the hands of a careless farmer; it has been
+restored by its present owner with the most perfect understanding and
+taste. For too long no one attempted to do as much for East Mascalls, a
+timbered ruin lying low among the fields to the east of the village; but
+quite recently it has been taken in hand.
+
+[Illustration: _East Mascalls--before renovation._]
+
+A quaint Lindfield epitaph may be mentioned: that of Richard Turner, who
+died in 1768, aged twenty-one:--
+
+
+     Long was my pain, great was my grief,
+     Surgeons I'd many but no relief.
+     I trust through Christ to rise with the just:
+     My leg and thigh was buried first.
+
+
+[Sidenote: "IDLEHURST"]
+
+I must not betray secrets, but it might be remarked that that kindly yet
+melancholy study of Wealden people and Wealden scenery, called
+_Idlehurst_--the best book, I think, that has come out of Sussex in
+recent years--may be read with some special appropriateness in this
+neighbourhood.
+
+North of Lindfield is Ardingly, now known chiefly in connection with the
+large school which travellers on the line to Brighton see from the
+carriage windows as they cross the viaduct over the Ouse. The village, a
+mile north of the college, is famous as the birthplace of Thomas Box,
+the first of the great wicket-keepers, who disdained gloves even to the
+fastest bowling. The church has some very interesting brasses to members
+of the Wakehurst and Culpeper families, who long held Wakehurst Place,
+the Elizabethan mansion to the north of the village. Nicholas Culpeper
+of the _Herbal_ was of the stock; but he must not be confounded with the
+Nicholas Culpeper whose brass, together with that of his wife, ten sons
+and eight daughters, is in the church, possibly the largest family on
+record depicted in that metal. The church also has a handsome canopied
+tomb, the occupant of which is unknown.
+
+From Ardingly superb walks in the Sussex forest country may be taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FOREST COUNTRY AGAIN
+
+     Balcombe--The iron furnace and the iron horse--Leonard Gale of
+     Tinsloe Forge--Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt of Crabbet--"The Old
+     Squire"--Frederick Locker-Lampson of Rowfant--The Rowfant
+     books--"To F. L."--The Rowfant titmice.
+
+
+On leaving the train at Balcombe, one is quickly on the densely wooded
+Forest Ridge of Sussex, here fenced and preserved, but farther east,
+when it becomes Ashdown Forest, consisting of vast tracts of open
+moorland and heather. Balcombe has a simple church, protected by a
+screen of Scotch firs; its great merit is its position as the key to a
+paradise for all who like woodland travel. From Balcombe to Worth is one
+vast pheasant run, with here and there a keeper's cottage or a farm:
+originally, of course, a series of plantations growing furnace wood for
+the ironmasters. In Tilgate Forest, to the west of Balcombe Forest, are
+two large sheets of water, once hammer-ponds, walking west from which,
+towards Horsham, one may be said to traverse the Lake Country of Sussex.
+A strange transformation, from Iron Black Country to Lake Country!--but
+nature quickly recovers herself, and were the true Black Country's
+furnaces extinguished, she would soon make even that grimy tract a haunt
+of loveliness once more.
+
+No longer are heard the sounds of the hammers, but Balcombe Forest,
+Tilgate Forest, and Worth Forest have still a constant reminder of
+machinery, for very few minutes pass from morning to night without the
+rumble of a train on the main line to Brighton, which passes through
+the very midst of this wild game region, and plunges into the earth
+under the high ground of Balcombe Forest. I know of no place where the
+trains emit such a volume of sound as in the valley of the Stanford
+brook, just north of the tunnel.
+
+The noise makes it impossible ever quite to lose the sense of modernity
+in these woods, as one may on Shelley Plain, a few miles west, or at
+Gill's Lap, in Ashdown Forest; unless, of course, one's imagination is
+so complaisant as to believe it to proceed from the old iron furnaces.
+This reminds me that Crabbet, just to the north of Worth (where church
+and vicarage stand isolated on a sandy ridge on the edge of the Forest),
+was the home of one of the most considerable of the Sussex ironmasters,
+Leonard Gale of Tinsloe Forge, who bought Crabbet, park and house, in
+1698--since "building," in his own words, is a "sweet impoverishing."
+
+[Sidenote: WORTH CHURCH]
+
+But we must pause for a moment at Worth, because its church is
+remarkable as being the largest in England to preserve its Saxon
+foundations. Sussex, as we have seen, is rich in Saxon relics, but the
+county has nothing more interesting than this. The church is cruciform,
+as all churches should be, and there is a little east window in the
+north transept through which, it is conjectured, arrows were intended to
+be shot at marauding Danes; for an Englishman's church was once his
+castle. Archaeologists familiar with Worth church have been known to pass
+with disdain cathedrals for which the ordinary person cannot find too
+many fine adjectives.
+
+[Sidenote: MR. BLUNT'S BALLAD]
+
+[Sidenote: THE OLD SQUIRE]
+
+To regain Crabbet. The present owner, Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt, poet,
+patriot, and breeder of Arab horses, who is a descendant of the Gales,
+has a long poem entitled "Worth Forest," wherein old Leonard Gale is a
+notable figure. Among other poems by the lord of Crabbet is the very
+pleasantly English ballad of
+
+
+             THE OLD SQUIRE.
+
+     I like the hunting of the hare
+       Better than that of the fox;
+     I like the joyous morning air,
+       And the crowing of the cocks.
+
+     I like the calm of the early fields,
+       The ducks asleep by the lake,
+     The quiet hour which Nature yields
+       Before mankind is awake.
+
+     I like the pheasants and feeding things
+       Of the unsuspicious morn;
+     I like the flap of the wood-pigeon's wings
+       As she rises from the corn.
+
+     I like the blackbird's shriek, and his rush
+       From the turnips as I pass by,
+     And the partridge hiding her head in a bush,
+       For her young ones cannot fly.
+
+     I like these things, and I like to ride
+       When all the world is in bed,
+     To the top of the hill where the sky grows wide,
+       And where the sun grows red.
+
+     The beagles at my horse heels trot,
+       In silence after me;
+     There's Ruby, Roger, Diamond, Dot,
+       Old Slut and Margery,--
+
+     A score of names well used, and dear,
+       The names my childhood knew;
+     The horn, with which I rouse their cheer,
+       Is the horn my father blew.
+
+     I like the hunting of the hare
+       Better than that of the fox;
+     The new world still is all less fair
+       Than the old world it mocks.
+
+     I covet not a wider range
+       Than these dear manors give;
+     I take my pleasures without change,
+       And as I lived I live.
+
+     I leave my neighbours to their thought;
+       My choice it is, and pride,
+     On my own lands to find my sport,
+       In my own fields to ride.
+
+     The hare herself no better loves
+       The field where she was bred,
+     Than I the habit of these groves,
+       My own inherited.
+
+     I know my quarries every one,
+       The meuse where she sits low;
+     The road she chose to-day was run
+       A hundred years ago.
+
+     The lags, the gills, the forest ways;
+       The hedgerows one and all,
+     These are the kingdoms of my chase,
+       And bounded by my wall.
+
+     Nor has the world a better thing,
+       Though one should search it round,
+     Than thus to live one's own sole king,
+       Upon one's own sole ground.
+
+     I like the hunting of the hare;
+       It brings me day by day,
+     The memory of old days as fair,
+       With dead men past away.
+
+     To these, as homeward still I ply,
+       And pass the churchyard gate,
+     Where all are laid as I must lie,
+       I stop and raise my hat.
+
+     I like the hunting of the hare;
+       New sports I hold in scorn.
+     I like to be as my fathers were,
+       In the days e'er I was born.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE ROWFANT BOOKS]
+
+We are indeed just now in a bookish and poetical district, for a little
+more than a mile to the east of Crabbet, in a beautiful Tudor house in a
+hollow close to the station, lived Frederick Locker-Lampson, the London
+lyricist; and here are treasured the famous Rowfant books and
+manuscripts which he brought together--the subject of graceful verses
+by many of his friends. Not the least charming of these tributes
+(printed in the _Rowfant Catalogue_ in 1886) are Mr. Andrew Lang's
+lines:
+
+
+                   TO F. L.
+
+     I mind that Forest Shepherd's saw,
+       For, when men preached of Heaven, quoth he;
+     "It's a' that's bricht, and a' that's braw,
+       But Bourhope's guid eneuch for me!"
+
+     Beneath the green deep-bosomed hills
+       That guard Saint Mary's Loch it lies,
+     The silence of the pasture fills
+       That shepherd's homely paradise.
+
+     Enough for him his mountain lake,
+       His glen the hern went singing through,
+     And Rowfant, when the thrushes wake,
+       May well seem good enough for YOU.
+
+     For all is old, and tried, and dear,
+       And all is fair, and round about
+     The brook that murmurs from the mere
+       Is dimpled with the rising trout.
+
+     But when the skies of shorter days
+       Are dark and all the "ways are mire,"
+     How bright upon your books the blaze
+       Gleams from the cheerful study fire.
+
+     On quartos where our fathers read,
+       Enthralled, the Book of Shakespeare's play,
+     On all that Poe could dream of dread,
+       And all that Herrick sang of gay!
+
+     Fair first editions, duly prized,
+       Above them all, methinks, I rate
+     The tome where Walton's hand revised
+       His wonderful receipts for bait!
+
+     Happy, who rich in toys like these
+       Forgets a weary nation's ills,
+     Who from his study window sees
+       The circle of the Sussex hills.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE RESOLUTE TITMICE]
+
+Rowfant was once the scene of one of the most determined struggles in
+history. The contestants were a series of Titmice and the G.P.O., and
+the account of the war may be read in the Natural History Museum at
+South Kensington:--"In 1888, a pair of the Great Titmouse (_Parus
+major_) began to build their nest in the post-box which stood in the
+road at Rowfant, and into which letters, &c., were posted and taken out
+by the door daily. One of the birds was killed by a boy, and the nest
+was not finished. In 1889, a pair completed the nest, laid seven eggs,
+and began to sit; but one day, when an unusual number of post-cards were
+dropped into, and nearly filled, the box, the birds deserted the nest,
+which was afterwards removed with the eggs. In 1890, a pair built a new
+nest and laid seven eggs, and reared a brood of five young, although the
+letters posted were often found lying on the back of the sitting bird,
+which never left the nest when the door of the box was opened to take
+out the letters. The birds went in and out by the slit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+EAST GRINSTEAD
+
+     Sackville College--John Mason Neale--_Theodosius; or, The Force of
+     Love_, at the East Grinstead Theatre--Three martyrs--Brambletye
+     House--Forest Row--The garden of the author of _The English Flower
+     Garden_--Diamond Jubilee clock-faces--"Big-on-Little" and the
+     reverend and irreverend commentator.
+
+
+East Grinstead, the capital of north-east Sussex, is interesting chiefly
+for Sackville College, that haunt of ancient peace of which John Mason
+Neale, poet, enthusiast, divine, historian, and romance-writer for
+children, was for many years the distinguished Warden. Nothing can
+exceed the quiet restfulness of the quadrangle. The college gives
+shelter to five brethren and six sisters (one of whom shows the visitor
+over the building), and to a warden and two assistants. Happy
+collegians, to have so fair a haven in which to pass the evening of
+life. East Grinstead otherwise has not much beauty, its commanding
+pinnacled church tower being more impressive from a distance, and its
+chief street mingling too much that is new with its few old timbered
+facades, charming though these are.
+
+[Illustration: _The Judge's Houses, East Grinstead._]
+
+The town, when it would be frivolous, to-day depends upon the occasional
+visits of travelling entertainers; but in the eighteenth century East
+Grinstead had a theatre of its own, in the main street, a play-bill of
+which, for May, 1758, is given in Boaden's _Life of Mrs. Siddons_. It
+states that "Theodosius; or, the Force of Love," is to be played, for
+the benefit of Mrs. P. Varanes by Mr. P., "who will strive as far as
+possible to support the character of this fiery Persian Prince, in which
+he was so much admired and applauded at Hastings, Arundel, Petworth,
+Midhurst, Lewes, &c." The attraction of the next announcement is the
+precise converse: "Theodosius, by a young gentleman from the University
+of Oxford, who never appeared on any stage."
+
+[Sidenote: NOBILITY AND THE ALTAR]
+
+The play-bill continues with a delicate hint: "Nothing in Italy can
+exceed the altar in the first scene of the play. Nevertheless, should
+any of the nobility or gentry wish to see it ornamented with flowers,
+the bearer will bring away as many as they choose to favour him with."
+Finally: "N.B.--The great yard dog that made so much noise on Thursday
+night during the last act of King Richard the Third, will be sent to a
+neighbour's over the way."
+
+The Sussex Martyrs, to whom a memorial, as we shall see, has recently
+been raised above Lewes, are usually associated with that town; but on
+July 18, 1556, Thomas Dungate, John Forman, and Anne, or Mother, Tree,
+were burned for conscience' sake at East Grinstead.
+
+Between East Grinstead and Forest Row, on the east, just under the hill
+and close to the railway, are the remains of Brambletye House, a rather
+florid ruin, once the seat of the great Sussex family of Lewknor. In its
+heyday Brambletye must have been a very fine place. Horace Smith's
+romance which bears its name, and for which Horsfield, in his _History
+of Sussex_, predicted a career commensurable with that of the Waverley
+novels, is now, I fear, justly forgotten. The slopes of Forest Row,
+which was of old a settlement of hunting lodges belonging to the great
+lords who took their pleasure in Ashdown Forest, are now bright with new
+villas. From Forest Row, Wych Cross and Ashdown Forest are easily
+gained; but of this open region of dark heather more in a later chapter.
+
+Between Kingscote and West Hoathly, a short distance to the south-west
+of East Grinstead, is another "tye"--Gravetye, a tudor mansion in a deep
+hollow, the home of Mr. William Robinson, the author of _The English
+Flower Garden_. Last April, the stonework, of which there is much, was a
+mass of the most wonderful purple aubretia, and the wild garden between
+the house and the water a paradise of daffodils.
+
+The church of West Hoathly (called West Ho-ly), which stands high on the
+hill to the south, has a slender shingled spire that may be seen from
+long distances. The tower has, however, been injured by the very ugly
+new clock that has been lately fixed in a position doubtless the most
+convenient but doubtless also the least comely. To nail to such a
+delicate structure as West Hoathly church the kind of dial that one
+expects to see outside a railway station is a curious lapse of taste.
+Hever church, in Kent, has a similar blemish, probably dating from one
+of the recent Jubilee celebrations, which left few loyal villages the
+richer by a beautiful memorial. Surely it should be possible to obtain
+an appropriate clock-face for such churches as these.
+
+West Hoathly has some iron tombstones, such as used to be cast in the
+old furnace days, which are not uncommon in these parts. Opposite the
+church is a building of great antiquity, which has been allowed to
+forget its honourable age.
+
+[Sidenote: "BIG-ON-LITTLE"]
+
+We are now on the fringe of the Sussex rock country, to which we come
+again in earnest when we reach Maresfield, and of which Tunbridge Wells
+is the capital. But not even Tunbridge Wells with its famous toad has
+anything to offer more remarkable than West Hoathly's "Big-on-Little,"
+in the Rockhurst estate. I am tempted to quote two descriptions of the
+rock, from two very different points of view. An antiquary writing in
+the eighteenth century (quoted by Horsfield) thus begins his
+account:--"About half a mile west of West Hoadley church there is a high
+ridge covered with wood; the edge of this is a craggy cliff, composed of
+enormous blocks of sand stone. The soil hath been entirely washed from
+off them, and in many places, from the interstices by which they are
+divided, one perceives these crags with bare broad white foreheads, and,
+as it were, overlooking the wood, which clothes the valley at their
+feet. In going to the place, I passed across this deep valley, and was
+led by a narrow foot-path almost trackless up to the cliff, which seems
+as one advances to hang over one's head. The mind in this passage is
+prepared with all the suspended feelings of awe and reverence, and as
+one approaches this particular rock, standing with its stupendous bulk
+poised, seemingly in a miraculous manner and point, one is struck with
+amazement. The recess in which it stands hath, behind this rock, and the
+rocks which surround it, a withdrawn and recluse passage which the eye
+cannot look into but with an idea of its coming from some more secret
+and holy adyt. All these circumstances, in an age of tutored
+superstition, would give, even to the finest minds, the impressions that
+lead to idolatry."
+
+[Sidenote: COBBETT AGAIN]
+
+And this is Cobbett's description, in the _Rural Rides_:--"At the place,
+of which I am now speaking, that is to say, by the side of this pleasant
+road to Brighton, and between Turner's Hill and Lindfield, there is a
+rock, which they call '_Big upon Little_,' that is to say, a rock upon
+another, having nothing else to rest upon, and the top one being longer
+and wider than the top of the one it lies on. This big rock is no
+trifling concern, being as big, perhaps, as a not very small house. How,
+then, _came_ this big upon little? What lifted up the big? It balances
+itself naturally enough; but what tossed it up? I do not like to _pay_ a
+parson for teaching me, while I have '_God's own Word_' to teach me; but
+if any parson will tell me _how_ big _came_ upon little, I do not know
+that I shall grudge him a trifle. And if he cannot tell me this; if he
+say, All that we have to do is to _admire_ and _adore_; then I tell him,
+that I can admire and adore without his _aid_, and that I will keep my
+money in my pocket." That is pure Cobbett.
+
+[Sidenote: WEST HOATHLY]
+
+West Hoathly is in the midst of some of the best of the inland country
+of Sussex and an excellent centre for the walker. Several places that we
+have already seen are within easy distance, such as Horsted Keynes,
+Worth and Worth Forest and Balcombe and Balcombe Forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+HORSTED KEYNES TO LEWES
+
+     The origin of "Keynes"--The Rev. Giles Moore's expenditure--Advice
+     as to tithes--Lord Sheffield and cricket--The grave of Edward
+     Gibbon--Fletching and English History--Newick and Chailey--The
+     Battle of Lewes--John Dudeney and John Kimber--Leonard Mascall and
+     the first English carp--Advice to fruit-growers--Malling Deanery
+     and the assassins of Becket.
+
+
+The very pretty church of Horsted Keynes, which in its lowly position is
+the very antithesis of West Hoathly's hill-surmounting spire, is famous
+for the small recumbent figure of a knight in armour, with a lion at his
+feet, possibly a member of the Keynes family that gives its name to this
+Horsted (thus distinguishing it from Little Horsted, a few miles distant
+in the East): Keynes being an anglicisation of de Cahanges, a family
+which sent a representative to assist in the Norman Conquest.
+
+[Sidenote: ANCIENT ECONOMICS]
+
+Horsted Keynes, which is situated in very pleasant country, once took
+its spiritual instruction from the lips of the Rev. Giles Moore,
+extracts from whose journals and account books, 1656-1679, have been
+printed by the S.A.S. I quote a few passages:
+
+"I gave my wyfe 15_s._ to lay out at St. James faire at Lindfield, all
+which shee spent except 2_s._ 6_d._ which she never returned mee.
+
+"16th Sept. I bought of Edward Barrett at Lewis a clock, for which I
+payed _L_2 10, and for a new jack, at the same time, made and brought
+home, _L_1 5. For two prolongers [_i.e._ save-alls] and an extinguisher
+2_d._, and a payr of bellowes 5_s._"
+
+7th May, 1656.--"I bought of William Clowson, upholsterer and itinerant,
+living over against the Crosse at Chichester, but who comes about the
+country with his pack on horseback:--
+
+
+     A fine large coverlett with birds and bucks  _L_2   10    0
+     A sett of striped curtains and valance          1    8    0
+     A coarse 8 qr coverlett                         1    2    0
+     Two middle blankets                             1    4    0
+     One beasil or Holland tyke or bolster           1   13    6
+
+
+"My mayde being sicke, I paid for opening her veine 4_d._, to the widow
+Rugglesford for looking to her, I gave 1_s._; and to Old Bess, for
+tending on her 3 days and 2 nights, I gave 1_s._; in all 2_s._
+4_d._--this I gave her.
+
+"Lent to my brother Luxford at the Widow Newports, never more to be
+seene! 1_s._"
+
+In 1658.--"To Wm Batchelor for bleeding mee in bed 2_s._ 6_d._, and for
+barbouring mee 1_s._" A year later:--"I agreed with Mr. Batchelor of
+Lindfield to barbour mee, and I am to pay him 16_s._ a yeare, beginning
+from Lady Day."
+
+In 1671.--"I bargained with Edward Waters that he should have 18_s._ in
+money for the trimming of mee by the year, and deducting 1_s._ 6_d._ for
+his tythes."
+
+23rd April, 1660.--"This being King Charles II. coronation I gave my
+namesake Moore's daughter then marryed 10_s._ and the fiddlers 6_d._
+
+"I payed the Widow Potter of Hoadleigh for knitting mee one payr of
+worsted stockings 2_s._ 6_d._; for spinning 2 lb of wool 14_d._, and for
+carding it 2_d._
+
+"To the collections made at 3 several sacraments I gave 3 several
+sixpences."
+
+12th May, 1673.--"I went to London, spending there, going and coming, as
+_alibi apparet in particularibus_, 13_s._ 8_d._; I bought for Ann Brett
+a gold ring, this being the posy, 'When this you see, remember mee,' and
+at the same time I bought Patrick's _Pilgrim_, 5_s._; _The
+Reasonableness of Scripture_, by Sir Chas. Wolseley, 2_s._ 6_d._; and a
+Comedy called _Epsom Wells_."
+
+Mr. Moore, having suffered in his tithes, left the following "necessary
+caution" for his successor:--"Never compound with any parishioner till
+you have first viewed theire lande and seen what corne they have upon it
+that yeare, and may have the next."
+
+[Sidenote: SHEFFIELD PARK]
+
+The next station on this quiet little cross-country line to Lewes, is
+Sheffield Park, the seat of Lord Sheffield. The present peer, one of the
+patrons of modern Sussex cricket, took a famous team to Australia in
+1891-2, and it was on his yacht that in 1894 cricket was played in the
+Ice Fiord at Spitzbergen under the midnight sun, when Alfred Shaw
+captured forty wickets in less than three-quarters of an hour.
+Australian teams visiting England used to open their season with a match
+at Sheffield Park, which contains one of the best private grounds in the
+country; but the old custom has, I fancy, lapsed. In the long winter of
+1890-1 several cricket matches on the ice were played on one of the
+lakes in the park, with well-known Sussex players on both sides.
+
+Sheffield Park is associated in literature with the name of Edward
+Gibbon, the historian, who spent much time there in the company of his
+friend, John Baker Holroyd, the first earl. Gibbon's remains lie in
+Fletching church, close by. There also lies Peter Dynot, a glover of
+Fletching, who assisted Jack Cade, the Sussex rebel, whom we meet later,
+in 1450; while (more history) it was in the woods around Fletching
+church that Simon de Montfort encamped before he climbed the hills, as
+we are about to see, and fought and won the Battle of Lewes, in 1264.
+
+The line passes next between Newick, on the east, and Chailey on the
+west. Fate seems to have decided that these villages shall always be
+bracketed in men's minds, like Beaumont and Fletcher, or Winchelsea and
+Rye: one certainly more often hears of "Newick and Chailey" than of
+either separately. Chailey has a wide breezy common from which the line
+of Downs between Ditchling Beacon and Lewes can be seen perhaps to their
+best advantage. Immediately to the south, and just to the west of
+Blackcap, the hill with a crest of trees, is Plumpton Plain, six hundred
+feet high, where the Barons formed their ranks to meet the third Harry
+in the Battle of Lewes, the actual fighting being on Mount Harry, the
+hill on Blackcap's east. A cross to mark the struggle, cut into the turf
+of the Plain, is still occasionally visible. More noticeable is the "V"
+in spruce firs planted on the escarpment to commemorate the Jubilee of
+1887.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHEPHERD MATHEMATICIAN]
+
+Plumpton, which is now known chiefly for its steeplechases, has had in
+its day at least two interesting inhabitants. One was John Dudeney,
+shepherd, mathematician, and schoolmaster, born here in 1782, who, as a
+youth, when tending his sheep on Newmarket Hill, dug a study and library
+in the chalk, and there kept his books and papers. He taught himself
+mathematics and languages, even Hebrew, and ultimately became a
+schoolmaster at Lewes. In his thorough adherence to learning Dudeney was
+the completest contrast to John Kimber of Chailey, a wealthy farmer with
+a consuming but unintelligent love of books, who was once, says
+Horsfield, seen bringing home Macklin's Bible, a costly work in six
+volumes in a sack laid across the back of a cart horse. According to the
+excellent habit of the old Sussex farmers, Mr. Kimber's body was borne
+to the grave in one of his wagons, drawn by his best team.
+
+[Sidenote: FANTASTIC FRUITS]
+
+Plumpton Place once had a moat, in which, legend has it, the first carp
+swam that came into England. The house then belonged to Leonard Mascall,
+whom Fuller in the _Worthies_ erroneously ascribes to Plumsted. In
+Fuller's own words, which no one could better: "Leonard Mascall, of
+Plumsted in this county, being much delighted in Gardening, man's
+Original vocation, was the first who brought over into England, from
+beyond the seas, _Carps_ and _Pippins_; the one, well-cook'd, delicious,
+the other cordial and restorative. For the proof hereof, we have his own
+word and witness; and did it, it seems, about the Fifth year of the
+reign of King _Henry_ the Eighth, Anno Dom. 1514. The time of his death
+is to me unknown." The credit of introducing carps and pippins has,
+however, been denied to Mascall, who died in 1589 at Farnham Royal in
+Buckinghamshire, where he was buried; but we know him beyond question to
+have been an ingenious experimentalist in horticulture. He wrote and
+translated several books, among them a treatise on the orchard by a monk
+of the Abbey of St. Vincent in France: _A Book of the Arte of and Manner
+howe to plant and graffe all sortes of trees, howe to set stones, and
+sowe Pepines to make wylde trees to graffe on_, 1572. I take a few
+passages from a later edition of this work:
+
+
+TO COLOUR APPLES.
+
+To have coloured Apples with what colour ye shall think good ye shall
+bore or slope a hole with an Auger in the biggest part of the body of
+the tree, unto the midst thereof, or thereabouts, and then look what
+colour ye will have them of. First ye shall take water and mingle your
+colour therewith, then stop it up again with a short pin made of the
+same wood or tree, then wax it round about. Ye may mingle with the said
+colour what spice ye list, to make them taste thereafter. Thus may ye
+change the colour and taste of any Apple.... This must be done before
+the Spring do come....
+
+
+TO MAKE APPLES FALL FROM THE TREE.
+
+If ye put fiery coles under an Apple tree, and then cast off the powder
+of Brimstone therein, and the fume thereof ascend up, and touch an Apple
+that is wet, that Apple shall fall incontinant.
+
+
+TO DESTROY PISMIERS OR ANTS ABOUT A TREE.
+
+Ye shall take of the saw-dust of Oke-wood oney, and straw that al about
+the tree root, and the next raine that doth come, all the Pismiers or
+Ants shall die there. For Earewigges, shooes stopt with hay, and hanged
+on the tree one night, they come all in.
+
+
+FOR TO HAVE RATH MEDLARS TWO MONTHS BEFORE OTHERS.
+
+For to have Medlars two months sooner than others and the one shall be
+better far than the other, ye shall graffe them upon a gooseberry tree,
+and also a franke mulberry tree, and before ye do graffe them, ye shall
+wet them in hay, and then graffe them.
+
+[Sidenote: MALLING DEANERY]
+
+To return to the line, for the excursion to Plumpton has taken us far
+from the original route, the next station to Newick and Chailey is
+Barcombe Mills, a watery village on the Ouse. The river valley contracts
+as Lewes is reached, with Malling Hill on the east and Offham Hill on
+the west: both taking their names from two of the quaint little hamlets
+by which Lewes is surrounded. It was at Mailing Deanery that the
+assassins of Thomas a Becket sought shelter on their flight from
+Canterbury. The legend records how, when they laid their armour on the
+Deanery table, that noble piece of furniture rose and flung the accursed
+accoutrements to the ground.
+
+On Malling Hill is the residence of a Lewes lady whose charitable
+impulses have taken a direction not common among those who suffer for
+others. She receives into her stable old and overworked horses, thus
+ensuring for them a sleek and peaceful dotage enlivened by sugar and
+carrots, and marked by the kindest consideration. The pyramidal grave
+(as of a Saxon chief) of one of these dependants may be seen from the
+road.
+
+[Illustration: _On the Ouse above Lewes._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+LEWES
+
+     The Museum of Sussex--The riches of Lewes--Her leisure and
+     antiquity--A plea from _Idlehurst_--Old Lewes disabilities--The
+     Norman Conquest--Lewes Castle--Sussex curiosities--Lewes among her
+     hills--The Battle of Lewes--The Cluniac Priory--Repellers of the
+     French--A comprehender of Earthquakes--The author of _The Rights of
+     Man_--A game of bowls--"Clio" Rickman and Thomas Tipper--Famous
+     Lewes men--The Fifth of November--The Sussex martyrs.
+
+
+Apart from the circumstance that the curiosities collected by the
+county's Archaeological Society are preserved in the castle, Lewes is the
+museum of Sussex; for she has managed to compress into small compass
+more objects of antiquarian interest than any town I know. Chichester,
+which is compact enough, sprawls by comparison.
+
+The traveller arriving by train no sooner alights from his carriage than
+he is on the site of the kitchens of the Cluniac Priory of St. Pancras,
+some of the walls of which almost scrape the train on its way to
+Brighton. That a priory eight hundred years old must be disturbed before
+a railway station can be built is a melancholy circumstance; but in the
+present case the vandalism had its compensation in the discovery by the
+excavating navvies of the coffins of William de Warenne and his wife
+Gundrada (the Conqueror's daughter), the founders of the priory, which
+otherwise would probably have been lost evermore.
+
+The castle, which dominates the oldest part of the town, is but a few
+minutes' stiff climb from the station; Lewes's several ancient churches
+are within hailing distance of each other; the field of her battle,
+where Simon de Montfort defeated Henry III., is in view from her
+north-west slopes; while the new martyrs' memorial on the turf above the
+precipitous escarpment of the Cliffe (once the scene of a fatal
+avalanche) reminds one of what horrors were possible in the name of
+religion in these streets less than four hundred years ago.
+
+[Sidenote: THE RICHES OF LEWES]
+
+Here are riches enough; yet Lewes adds to such mementoes of an historic
+past two gaols--one civil and one naval--a racecourse, and a river, and
+she is an assize town to boot. Once, indeed, Lewes was still better off,
+for she had a theatre, which for some years was under the management of
+Jack Palmer, of whom Charles Lamb wrote with such gusto. Added to these
+possessions, she has, in Keere Street, the narrowest and steepest
+thoroughfare down which a king (George IV.) ever drove a coach and four,
+and a row of comfortable and serene residences (on the way to St. Ann's)
+more luxuriantly and beautifully covered with leaves than any I ever
+saw. (Much of Lewes in September is scarlet with Virginia creeper.)
+
+[Illustration: _High Street, Southover._]
+
+[Sidenote: "BRIGHTHELMSTONE, NEAR LEWES"]
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN HALSHAM'S DREAM]
+
+Although less than half an hour from Brighton by train, and an hour by
+road, Lewes is yet a full quarter of a century behind it. She would do
+well jealously to maintain this interval. Lewes was old and grey before
+Brighton was thought of (indeed, it was, as we have seen, a Lewes man
+that discovered Brighton--Dr. Russell, who lies in his grave in South
+Malling church); let her cling to her seniority. As a town "in the
+movement," as a contemporary of the "Queen of Watering Places," she
+would cut a poor figure. But it is amusing to think of the old address
+of a visitor to Brighton, "at Brighthelmstone, near Lewes," and to read
+the county paper, _The Sussex Weekly Advertiser; or, Lewes Journal_, of
+a century ago, with its columns of Lewes news and paragraphs of Brighton
+correspondence. Lewes will cease to have charm the moment she
+modernises. In the words of the author of _Idlehurst_, as he looked down
+on the huddling little settlement from the Cliffe Hill: "Let us keep a
+country town or two as preserves for clean atmospheres of body and soul,
+for the almost lost secret of sitting still.... I find myself tangled
+in half-dreams of a devolution by which, when national amity shall have
+become mentionable besides personal pence, London shall attract to
+herself all the small vice, as she does already most of the great, from
+the country, all the thrusters after gain, the vulgar, heavy-fingered
+intellects, the Progressive spouters, the Bileses, the speculating
+brigandage, and shall give us back from the foggy world of clubs and
+cab-ranks and geniuses, the poets and painters, all the nice and witty
+and pretty people, to make towns such as this, conserved and purified,
+into country-side Athenses; to form distinct schools of letters and art,
+individual growths, not that universal Cockney mind, smoke-ingrained,
+stage-ridden, convention-throttled, which now masquerades under the
+forms of every clime and dialect within reach of a tourist ticket."
+
+The customs of Lewes at the end of the Saxon rule and the beginning of
+the Norman, as recorded in the pages of the Domesday Book, show that
+residence in the town in those days was not unmixed delight, except,
+perhaps, for murderers, for whom much seems to have been done. Thus: "If
+the king wished to send an armament to guard the seas, without his
+personal attendance, twenty shillings were collected from all the
+inhabitants, without exception or respect to particular tenure, and
+these were paid to the men-at-arms in the ships.
+
+"The seller of a horse, within the borough, pays one penny to the mayor
+(sheriff?) and the purchaser another; of an ox, a half-penny; of a man,
+fourpence, in whatsoever place he may be brought within the rape.
+
+"A murderer forfeits seven shillings and fourpence; a ravisher forfeits
+eight shillings and fourpence; an adulterer eight shillings and
+fourpence; an adultress the same. The king has the adulterer, the bishop
+the adulteress."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PROVIDENT DE WARENNES]
+
+With the Conquest new life came into the town, as into South Sussex
+generally. The rule of the de Braoses, who dominated so much of the
+country through which we have been passing, is here no more, the great
+lord of this district being William de Warenne, who had claims upon
+William the Conqueror, not only for services rendered in the Conquest
+but as a son-in-law. When, therefore, the contest was over, some of the
+richest prizes fell to Earl de Warenne. Among them was the township of
+Lewes, whose situation so pleased the Earl that he decided to make his
+home there. His first action, then, was to graft upon the existing
+fortress a new stronghold, the remains of which still stand.
+
+Ten years after the victory at Hastings the memory of the blood of the
+sturdy Saxons whom he had hacked down at Battle began so to weigh upon
+de Warenne's conscience that he set out with Gundrada upon an expiatory
+pilgrimage to Rome. Sheltering on the way in the monastery of St. Per,
+at Cluny, they were so hospitably received that on returning to Lewes
+William and Gundrada built a Priory, partly as a form of gratitude, and
+partly as a safeguard for the life to come. In 1078, it was formally
+founded on a magnificent scale. Thus Lewes obtained her castle and her
+priory, both now in ruins, in the one of which William de Warenne might
+sin with a clear mind, knowing that just below him, on the edge of the
+water-brooks, was (in the other) so tangible an expiation.
+
+The date of the formation of the priory spoils the pleasant legend which
+tells how Harold, only badly wounded, was carried hither from Battle,
+and how, recovering, he lived quietly with the brothers until his
+natural death some years later. A variant of the same story takes the
+English king to a cell near St. John's-under-the-Castle, also in Lewes,
+and establishes him there as an anchorite. But (although, as we shall
+see when we come to Battle, the facts were otherwise) all true
+Englishmen prefer to think of Harold fighting in the midst of his army,
+killed by a chance arrow shot into the zenith, and lying there until the
+eyes of Editha of the Swan-neck lighted upon his dear corpse amid the
+hundreds of the slain.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CASTLE'S CURIOSITIES]
+
+The de Warennes held Lewes Castle until the fourteenth century; the
+Sussex Archaeological Society now have it in their fostering care.
+Architecturally it is of no great interest, although it was once unique
+in England by the possession of two keeps; nor has it romantic
+associations, like Kenilworth or even Carisbrooke. The crumbling masonry
+was assisted in its decay by no siege or bombardment; the castle has
+been never the scene of human struggle. Visitors, therefore, must take
+pleasure chiefly in the curiosities collected in the museum and in the
+views from the roof. A few little rooms hold the treasures amassed by
+the Archaeological Society; amassed, it may be said, with little
+difficulty, for the soil of the district is fertile in relics. From
+Ringmer come rusty shield bosses and the mouldering skull of an
+Anglo-Saxon; from the old Lewes gaol come a lock and a key strong enough
+to hold Jack Sheppard; and from Horsham Gaol a complete set of fetters
+for ankles and wrists, once used to cramp the movements of female
+malefactors. Here, in a case, is a tiny bronze thimble that tipped the
+pretty finger of a Roman seamstress--one only among scores of tokens of
+the Roman occupation of the county. Flint arrow heads and celts in
+profusion take us back to remoter times. A Pyecombe crook hangs on one
+wall, and relics of the Sussex ironworks are plentiful. The highest room
+contains rubbings of our best brasses. Outside is an early Sussex
+plough. In a corner is a beadle's staff that once struck terror into the
+hearts of Sabbath-breaking boys; and near one of the windows is a little
+brass crucifix from St. Pancras' Priory. But nothing, the custodian
+tells me, so pleases visitors to this very catholic collection as the
+mummied hand of a murderess.
+
+[Sidenote: THE BATTLE OF LEWES]
+
+Looking down and around from the roof of the keep, you are immediately
+struck by the wide shallow hollow in which Lewes lies. It is something
+the shape of a dairy basin, the gap to the north-west, between Malling
+Hill and Offham, serving for the lip. Nothing could be flatter than the
+smiling meadows, streaked with tiny streams, stretching between Lewes
+and the coast line to the south-east (with the exception of one
+symmetrical hillock just out of the town). Among them curls the lazy
+Ouse; just beneath you Lewes sleeps, red-roofed as an Italian town,
+sending up no hum of activity, listless and immovable save for a few
+spirals of silent smoke. The surrounding hills are very fine: Firle
+Beacon in the far east; Mount Caburn, a noble cone, in the near east;
+Mount Harry to the west, on whose slopes Henry III., assisted by the
+fiery Prince Edward, fought the Barons. So fiery, indeed, was this lad
+that he forgot all about his father, and gave chase to a small
+detachment of the enemy, catching them up, and hewing them down with the
+keenest enjoyment, while the unhappy Henry was being completely worsted
+by de Montfort. It was a bloody battle, made up, as old Fabian wrote, of
+embittered men, with hearts full of hatred, "eyther desyrous to bring
+the other out of lyfe." Great fun was made by the humorists of the time,
+after the battle, over the fact that Richard, King of the Romans,
+Henry's brother, was captured in a windmill in which he had taken
+refuge. This mill stood near the site of the Black Horse inn. In _The
+Barons' Wars_, by Mr. Blaauw, the Sussex antiquary, the whole story is
+told.
+
+Lewes has played but a small part in history since that battle; but, as
+we saw when we were at Rottingdean, it was one of her Cluniac priors
+that repulsed the French in 1377, and her son, Sir Nicholas Pelham, who
+performed a similar service in 1545, at Seaford. As the verses on his
+monument in St. Michael's Church run:--
+
+
+     What time the French sought to have sackt Sea-Foord,
+     This Pelham did repel-em back aboord.
+
+
+[Illustration: _Ann of Cleves' House, Southover._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE CLUNIAC PRIORY]
+
+The Cluniac priory of St. Pancras was dissolved by Henry VIII. in 1537,
+Thomas Cromwell, that execrable vandal, not only abolishing the monks
+but destroying the buildings, which covered, with their gardens and fish
+ponds, forty acres. The ruins that remain give some idea of the extent
+of this wonderful priory, another relic being the adjacent mound on
+which the Calvary stood, probably constructed of the earth removed for
+the purpose from the Dripping Pan, as the hollow circular space is
+called where Lewes now plays cricket. One very pretty possession of the
+monks was allowed to stand until quite recent times--the Columbarium,
+which was as large as a church and contained homes for 3,228 birds. It
+has now vanished; but an idea of what it was may be gained from the
+pigeon house at Alciston, a few miles distant, which belonged to Battle
+Abbey.
+
+The priory's possessions were granted to Cromwell by Henry VIII., who,
+tradition asserts (somewhat directly in the face of historical
+evidence), murdered one of his wives on a winding stair in the building,
+and may therefore have been glad to see its demolition. Which wife it
+was, is not stated, but when Cromwell went the way of all this king's
+favourites, the property was transferred to Ann of Cleves, who is
+supposed to have lived in the most picturesque of the old houses on the
+right hand side of Southover's street as you leave Lewes for the Ouse
+valley.
+
+Southover church, in itself a beautiful structure of the grave red type,
+with a square ivied tower and the most delicate vane in Sussex, is
+rendered the more interesting by the possession of the leaden caskets of
+William de Warenne and Gundrada and the superb tomb removed from Isfield
+church and very ingeniously restored. These relics repose in a charming
+little chapel built in their honour.
+
+[Sidenote: TOM PAINE]
+
+A notable man who had association with Lewes was Tom Paine, author of
+_The Rights of Man_. He settled there as an exciseman in 1768, married
+Elizabeth Ollive of the same town at St. Michael's Church in 1771, and
+succeeded to her father's business as a tobacconist and grocer. Paine
+was more successful as a debater than a business man. As a member of the
+White Hart evening club he was more often than any other the winner of
+the Headstrong Book--an old Greek Homer despatched the next morning to
+the most obstinate haranguer of the preceding night. It was at Lewes
+that Tom Paine's thoughts were first turned to the question of
+government. He used thus to tell the story. One evening after playing
+bowls, all the party retired to drink punch; when, in the conversation
+that ensued, Mr. Verril (it should be Verrall) "observed, alluding to
+the wars of Frederick, that the King of Prussia was the best fellow in
+the world for a king, he had so much of the devil in him. This, striking
+me with great force, occasioned the reflection, that if it were
+necessary for a king to have so much of the devil in him, kings might
+very beneficially be dispensed with."
+
+I thought of that historic game of bowls as I watched four Lewes
+gentlemen playing this otherwise discreetest of games in the meadow by
+the castle gate on a fine September evening. Surely (after the historic
+Plymouth Hoe) a lawn in the shadow of a Norman castle is the ideal spot
+for this leisurely but exciting pastime. The four Lewes gentlemen played
+uncommonly well, with bowls of peculiar splendour in which a setting of
+silver glistened as they sped over the turf. After each game one little
+boy bearing a cloth wiped the bowls while another registered the score.
+And now I feel that no one can really be said to have seen Lewes unless
+he has watched the progress of such a game: it remains in my mind as
+intimate a part of the town and the town's spirit as the ruins of the
+Priory, or Keere Street, or the Castle itself.
+
+The house of Tom Paine, just off the High Street, almost opposite the
+circular tower of St. Michael's, has a tablet commemorating its
+illustrious owner. It also has a very curious red carved demon which
+otherwise distinguishes it. Lewes was not always proud of Tom Paine; but
+Cuckfield went farther. In 1793, I learn from the _Sussex Advertiser_
+for that year, Cuckfield emphasised its loyalty to the constitution by
+singing "God save the King" in the streets and burning Paine in effigy.
+
+[Sidenote: "CLIO" RICKMAN]
+
+Mention of Tom Paine naturally calls to mind his friend and biographer
+(and my thrice great uncle), Thomas "Clio" Rickman, the Citizen of the
+World, who was born at Lewes in 1760. Rickman began life as a Quaker,
+and therefore without his pagan middle name, which he first adopted as
+the signature to epigrams and scraps of verse in the local paper, and
+afterwards incorporated in his signature. Rickman's connection with Tom
+Paine and his own revolutionary habits were a source of distress to his
+Quaker relatives at Lewes, so much so that there is a story in the
+family of the Citizen being refused admission to a house in the
+neighbourhood where he had eight impressionable nieces, and, when he
+would visit their father, being entertained instead at the Bear. His
+Bible, with sceptical marginal notes, is still preserved, with the bad
+pages pasted together by a subsequent owner.
+
+After roving about in Spain and other countries he settled as a
+bookseller in London, and it was in his house and at his table that _The
+Rights of Man_ was written. "This table," says an article on Rickman in
+the _Wonderful Museum_, "is prized by him very highly at this time; and
+no doubt will be deemed a rich relic by some of our irreligious
+connoisseurs." It was shown at the Tom Paine exhibition a few years ago.
+Rickman escaped prosecution, but he once had his papers seized.
+
+[Sidenote: TIPPER'S EPITAPH]
+
+According to his portrait Clio wore a hat like a beehive, and he
+invented a trumpet to increase the sound of a signal gun. His verse is
+exceedingly poor, his finest poetical achievement being the epitaph on
+Thomas Tipper in Newhaven churchyard. Tipper was the brewer of the ale
+that was known as "Newhaven Tipper"; but he was other things too:
+
+
+     Honest he was, ingenuous, blunt and kind,
+     And dared what few dare do, to speak his mind.
+     Philosophy and history well he knew,
+     Was versed in Physic and in surgery too,
+     The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold,
+     Nor did one knavish act to get his gold.
+     He played through life a varied comic part,
+     And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.
+
+
+Charles Lamb greatly admired the end of this epitaph. Clio Rickman died
+in 1834.
+
+Among other men of note who have lived in Lewes or have had association
+with it, was John Evelyn the diarist, who had some of his education at
+Southover grammar school: Mark Antony Lower, the Sussex antiquary, to
+whom all writers on the county are indebted; the Rev. T. W. Horsfield,
+the historian of Sussex, without whose work we should also often be in
+difficulties; and the Rev. Gideon Mantell, the Sussex geologist, whose
+collection of Sussex fossils is preserved in the British Museum.
+
+In St. Ann's church on the hill lie the bones of a remarkable man who
+died at Lewes (in the tenth climacteric) in 1613--no less a person than
+Thomas Twyne, M.D. In addition to the principles of physic he
+"comprehended earthquakes" and wrote a book about them. He also wrote a
+survey of the world. I quote Horsfield's translation of the florid Latin
+inscription to his memory: "Hippocrates saw Twyne lifeless and his bones
+slightly covered with earth. Some of his sacred dust (says he) will be
+of use to me in removing diseases; for the dead, when converted into
+medicine, will expel human maladies, and ashes prevail against ashes.
+Now the physician is absent, disease extends itself on every side, and
+exults its enemy is no more. Alas! here lies our preserver Twyne; the
+flower and ornament of his age. Sussex deprived of her physician,
+languished, and is ready to sink along with him. Believe me, no future
+age will produce so good a physician and so renowned a man as this has.
+He died at Lewes in 1613, on the 1st of August, in the tenth
+climacteric, (viz. 70)."
+
+[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON AT LEWES]
+
+Dr. Johnson was once in Lewes, on a day's visit to the Shelleys, at the
+house which bears their name at the south end of the town. One of the
+little girls becoming rather a nuisance with her questions, the Doctor
+lifted her into a cherry tree and walked off. At dinner, some time
+later, the child was missed, and a search party was about to set out
+when the Doctor exclaimed, "Oh, I left her in a tree!" For many years
+the tree was known as "Dr. Johnson's cherry tree."
+
+[Illustration: _St. Ann's Church, Southover._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIFTH]
+
+Lewes is ordinarily still and leisurely, with no bustle in her steep
+streets save on market days: an abode of rest and unhastening feet. But
+on one night of the year she lays aside her grey mantle and her quiet
+tones and emerges a Bacchante robed in flame. Lewes on the 5th of
+November is an incredible sight; probably no other town in the United
+Kingdom offers such a contrast to its ordinary life. I have never heard
+that Lewes is notably Protestant on other days in the year, that any
+intolerance is meted out to Roman Catholics on November 4th or November
+6th; but on November 5th she appears to believe that the honour of the
+reformed church is wholly in her hands, and that unless her voice is
+heard declaiming against the tyrannies and treacheries of Rome all the
+spiritual labours of the eighth Henry will have been in vain.
+
+No fewer than eight Bonfire Societies flourish in the town, all in a
+strong financial position. Each of these has its bonfire blazing or
+smouldering at a street corner, from dusk to midnight, and each, at a
+certain stage in the evening, forms into procession, and approaching its
+own fire by devious routes, burns an effigy of the Pope, together with
+whatever miscreant most fills the public eye at the moment--such as
+General Booth or Mr. Kruger, both of whom I have seen incinerated amid
+cheers and detonations.
+
+[Sidenote: LEWES ROUSERS]
+
+The figures are not lightly cast upon the flames, but are conducted
+thither ceremoniously, the "Bishop" of the society having first passed
+sentence upon them in a speech bristling with local allusions. These
+speeches serve the function of a _revue_ of the year and are sometimes
+quite clever, but it is not until they are printed in the next morning's
+paper that one can take their many points. The principal among the many
+distractions is the "rouser," a squib peculiar to Lewes, to which the
+bonfire boys (who are, by the way, in great part boys only in name, like
+the postboys of the past and the cowboys of the present) have given
+laborious nights throughout the preceding October. The rouser is much
+larger and heavier than the ordinary squib; it is propelled through the
+air like a rocket by the force of its escaping sparks; and it bursts
+with a terrible report. In order to protect themselves from the ravages
+of the rouser the people in the streets wear spectacles of wire netting,
+while the householders board up their windows and lay damp straw on
+their gratings. Ordinary squibs and crackers are also continuously
+ignited, while now and then one of the sky rockets discharged in flights
+from a procession, elects to take a horizontal course, and hurtles
+head-high down the crowded street.
+
+So the carnival proceeds until midnight, when the firemen, who have
+been on the alert all the evening, extinguish the fires. The Bonfire
+Societies subsequently collect information as to any damage done and
+make it good: a wise course, to which they owe in part the sanction to
+renew the orgie next year. Other towns in Sussex keep up the glorious
+Fifth with some spirit, but nowhere in England is there anything to
+compare with the thoroughness of Lewes.
+
+[Illustration: _The Ouse at South Street, Lewes._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE LEWES MARTYRS]
+
+[Sidenote: RICHARD WOODMAN]
+
+To some extent Lewes may consider that she has reason for the display,
+for on June 22, 1557, ten men and women were tied to the stake and
+burned to death in the High Street for professing a faith obnoxious to
+Queen Mary. Chief of these courageous enthusiasts were Richard Woodman
+and Derrick Carver. Woodman, a native of Buxted, had settled at
+Warbleton, where he was a prosperous iron master. All went well until
+Mary's accession to the throne, when the rector of Warbleton, who had
+been a Protestant under Edward VI., turned, in Foxe's words, "head to
+tayle" and preached "clean contrary to that which he had before taught."
+Woodman's protests carried him to imprisonment and the stake.
+Altogether, Lewes saw the death of sixteen martyrs.
+
+[Illustration: _The Ouse at Piddinghoe._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE OUSE VALLEY
+
+     The two Ouses--Three round towers--Thirsty
+     labourers--Telscombe--The hills and the sea--Mrs. Marriott Watson's
+     Down poem--Newhaven--A Sussex miller--Seaford's past--A politic
+     smuggler--Electioneering ingenuity--Bishopstone.
+
+
+The road from Lewes to the sea runs along the edge of the Ouse levels,
+just under the bare hills, passing through villages that are little more
+than homesteads of the sheep-farmers, albeit each has its church--Iford,
+Rodmell, Southease, Piddinghoe--and so to Newhaven, the county's only
+harbour of any importance since the sea silted up the Shoreham bar. You
+may be as much out of the world in one of these minute villages as
+anywhere twice the distance from London; and the Downs above them are
+practically virgin soil. The Brighton horseman or walker takes as a rule
+a line either to Lewes or to Newhaven, rarely adventuring in the
+direction of Iford Hill, Highdole Hill, or Telscombe village, which
+nestles three hundred feet high, over Piddinghoe. By day the waggons ply
+steadily between Lewes and the port, but other travellers are few. Once
+evening falls the world is your own, with nothing but the bleat of sheep
+and the roar of the French boat trains to recall life and civilisation.
+
+[Sidenote: THE OUSE VALLEY]
+
+The air of this valley is singularly clear, producing on fine days a
+blue effect that is, I believe, peculiar to the district. In the
+sketches of a Brighton painter in water colours, Mr. Clem Lambert, who
+has worked much at Rodmell, the spirit of the river valleys of Sussex is
+reproduced with extraordinary fidelity and the minimum loss of
+freshness.
+
+[Illustration: _Rodmell._]
+
+Horsfield, rather than have no poetical blossom to deck his page at the
+mention of the Lewes river, quotes a passage from "The Task":
+
+
+     Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
+     Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er,
+     Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
+     Delighted.
+
+
+Dr. Johnson's remark that one green field is like another green field,
+might, one sees, be extended to rivers, for Cowper was, of course,
+describing the Ouse at Olney.
+
+The first village out of Lewes on the Newhaven road is Kingston (one of
+three Sussex villages of this name), on the side of the hill, once the
+property of Sir Philip Sidney. Next is Iford, with straw blowing free
+and cows in its meadows; next Rodmell, whence Whiteway Bottom and Breaky
+Bottom lead to the highlands above: next Southease, where the only
+bridge over the Ouse between Lewes and Newhaven is to be crossed: a
+little village famous for a round church tower, of which Sussex knows
+but three, one other at St. Michael's, Lewes, and one at Piddinghoe, the
+next village.
+
+[Sidenote: SOUTHEASE THIRST]
+
+The Southease rustics were once of independent mind, as may be gathered
+from the following extract from the "Manorial Customs of
+Southease-with-Heighton, near Lewes," in 1623: "Every reaper must have
+allowed him, at the cost of the lord or his farmer, one drinkinge in the
+morninge of bread and cheese, and a dinner at noone consistinge of
+rostmeate and other good victualls, meete for men and women in harvest
+time; and two drinkinges in the afternoone, one in the middest of their
+afternoone's work and the other at the ende of their day's work, and
+drinke alwayes duringe their work as neede shall require."
+
+[Sidenote: PIDD'NHOO]
+
+Telscombe, the capital of these lonely Downs and as good an objective as
+the walker who sets out from Brighton, Rottingdean, or Lewes to climb
+hills can ask, is a charming little shy hamlet which nothing can harm,
+snugly reposing in its combe, above Piddinghoe. Piddinghoe (pronounced
+Pidd'nhoo) is a compact village at the foot of the hill; but it has
+suffered in picturesqueness and character by its proximity to the
+commercial enterprise of Newhaven. Hussey, in his _Notes on the Churches
+of ... Sussex_, suggests that a field north of the village was once the
+site of a considerable Roman villa. A local sarcasm credits Piddinghoe
+people with the habit of shoeing their magpies.
+
+[Illustration: _Piddinghoe._]
+
+The Downs when we saw them first, between Midhurst and Chichester,
+formed an inland chain parallel with the shore: here, and eastward as
+far as Beachy Head, where they suddenly cease, their southern slopes are
+washed by the Channel. This companionship of the sea lends them an
+additional wildness: sea mists now and then envelop them in a cloud; sea
+birds rise and fall above their cliffs; the roar or sigh of the waves
+mingles with the cries of sheep; the salt savour of the sea is borne on
+the wind over the crisp turf. It was, I fancy, among the Downs in this
+part of Sussex that Mrs. Marriott-Watson wrote the intimately
+understanding lines which I take the liberty of quoting:
+
+[Sidenote: A HILL POEM]
+
+
+                         ON THE DOWNS.
+
+     Broad and bare to the skies
+     The great Down-country lies,
+     Green in the glance of the sun,
+     Fresh with the clean salt air;
+     Screaming the gulls rise from the fresh-turned mould,
+     Where the round bosom of the wind-swept wold
+     Slopes to the valley fair.
+
+     Where the pale stubble shines with golden gleam
+     The silver ploughshare cleaves its hard-won way
+     Behind the patient team,
+     The slow black oxen toiling through the day
+     Tireless, impassive still,
+     From dawning dusk and chill
+     To twilight grey.
+
+     Far off the pearly sheep
+     Along the upland steep
+     Follow their shepherd from the wattled fold,
+     With tinkling bell-notes falling sweet and cold
+     As a stream's cadence, while a skylark sings
+     High in the blue, with eager outstretched wings,
+     Till the strong passion of his joy be told.
+
+     But when the day grows old,
+     And night cometh fold on fold,
+     Dulling the western gold,
+     Blackening bush and tree,
+     Veiling the ranks of cloud,
+     In their pallid pomp and proud
+     That hasten home from the sea,
+     Listen--now and again if the night be still enow,
+     You may hear the distant sea range to and fro
+     Tearing the shingly bourne of his bounden track,
+     Moaning with hate as he fails and falleth back;
+
+     The Downs are peopled then;
+     Fugitive, low-browed men
+     Start from the slopes around
+     Over the murky ground
+     Crouching they run with rough-wrought bow and spear,
+     Now seen, now hid, they rise and disappear,
+     Lost in the gloom again.
+
+     Soft on the dew-fall damp
+     Scarce sounds the measured tramp
+     Of bronze-mailed sentinels,
+     Dark on the darkened fells
+     Guarding the camp.
+
+     The Roman watch-fires glow
+     Red on the dusk; and harsh
+     Cries a heron flitting slow
+     Over the valley marsh
+     Where the sea-mist gathers low.
+
+     Closer, and closer yet
+     Draweth the night's dim net
+     Hiding the troubled dead:
+     No more to see or know
+     But a black waste lying below,
+     And a glimmering blank o'erhead.
+
+
+Of Newhaven there is little to say, except that in rough weather the
+traveller from France is very glad to reach it, and on a fine day the
+traveller from England is happy to leave it behind. In the churchyard is
+a monument in memory of the officers and crew of the _Brazen_, which
+went down off the town in 1800, and lost all hands save one.
+
+[Sidenote: A SUSSEX MILLER]
+
+On the way to Seaford, which is nearly three miles east, sheltering
+under its white headland (a preliminary sketch, as one might say, for
+Beachy Head), we pass the Bishopstone tide mills, once the property of a
+sturdy and prosperous Sussex autocrat named William Catt, the grower of
+the best pears in the county, and the first to welcome Louis Philippe
+(whom he had advised on milling in France) when he landed at Newhaven in
+exile. A good story told of William Catt, by Mr. Lower, in his _Worthies
+of Sussex_, illustrates not only the character of that sagacious and
+kindly martinet, but also of the Sussex peasant in its mingled
+independence and dependence, frankness and caution. Mr. Catt, having
+unbent among his retainers at a harvest supper, one of them, a little
+emboldened perhaps by draughts of Newhaven "tipper," thus addressed his
+master. "Give us yer hand, sir, I love ye, I love ye," but, he added,
+"I'm danged if I beant afeared of ye, though."
+
+[Illustration: _Southover Grange._]
+
+There was a hermitage on the cliff at Seaford some centuries ago. In
+1372 the hermit's name was Peter, and we find him receiving letters of
+protection for the unusual term of five years. In the vestry of the
+church is an old monument bearing the riddling inscription: "... Also,
+near this place lie two mothers, three grandmothers, four aunts, four
+sisters, four daughters, four grand-daughters, three cousins--but VI
+persons." A record in the Seaford archives runs thus: "Dec. 24, 1652.
+Then were all accounts taken and all made even, from the beginning of
+ye world, of the former Bayliffes unto the present time, and there
+remained ... ye sum of twelve pounds, sixteen shillings, seven pence."
+
+[Sidenote: THE PRICE OF TWO VOTES]
+
+Millburgh House, Seaford, was of old called Corsica Hall, having been
+built (originally at Wellingham, near Lewes, and then moved) by a
+smuggler named Whitfield, who was outlawed for illicit traffic in
+Corsican wine. He obtained the removal of his outlawry by presenting
+George II. with a selection of his choicest vintages. Another agreeable
+story of local corruption is told concerning Seaford's old
+electioneering days. It was in 1798, during the candidature of Sir
+Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey. Sir Godfrey was one day addressed by
+Mrs. S---- (nothing but Horsfield's delicacy keeps her name from fame) in
+the following terms: "Mr. S----, sir, will vote, of course, as he
+pleases--I have nothing to do or to say about him; but there is my
+gardener and my coachman, both of whom will, I am sure, be entirely
+guided by me. Now, they are both family men, Sir Godfrey, and I wish to
+do the best I can to serve them. Now, I know you are in great doubt, and
+that two sure votes are of great value: I'll tell you what you shall do.
+You shall give me _L_200; nobody will know any thing about it; there will
+be no danger--no bribery, Sir Godfrey, at all. I will desire the men to
+go and vote for you and Colonel Tarleton, and it will all be right, and
+no harm done. The bargain," adds Horsfield, "was struck--the money
+paid--the votes given as promised; and the election over, the old lady
+gave the two men _L_30 a piece, and pocketed the rest for the good of her
+country."
+
+[Sidenote: SEAFORD TO LEWES]
+
+Seaford's neighbouring village, Bishopstone, in addition to its tide
+mills--the only tide mills in Sussex excepting that at Sidlesham, now
+disused--possessed once the oldest windmill in the county. In the very
+charming little church is buried James Hurdis, author of _The Village
+Curate_, whom we shall meet again at Burwash. From Bishopstone we may
+return to Lewes either by the road through South Heighton, Tarring
+Neville, Itford Farm, and Beddingham, or cross the river again at
+Southease, and retrace our earlier steps through Rodmell and Iford. That
+is the quicker way. The road through Beddingham is longer, and
+interesting rather for the hills above it than for anything upon it. To
+these hills we come in the next chapter.
+
+[Illustration: _Near Tarring Neville._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ALFRISTON
+
+     Three routes to Alfriston--West Firle--The Gages--A "Noble
+     Dame"--Sussex pronunciation and doggedness--The Selmeston
+     smugglers--Alfriston's ancient inn--The middle ages and P....
+     P....--Alfriston church--A miracle and a sign--An Alfriston
+     scholar--Dr. Benbrigg--The smallest church in Sussex--Alfriston as
+     a centre--A digression on walking--"A Song against
+     Speed"--Alciston--A Berwick genius--The Long Man of Wilmington.
+
+
+Alfriston may be reached from Lewes by rail, taking train to Berwick; by
+road, under the hills; or on foot or horse-back, over the hills. By
+road, you pass first through Beddingham, a small village, where, it is
+said, was once a monastery; then, by a southern _detour_, to West Firle,
+a charming little village with a great park, which bears the same
+relation to Firle Beacon that Wiston Park does to Chanctonbury Ring. The
+tower in the east serves to provide a good view of the Weald for those
+who do not care to climb the beacon's seven hundred feet and get a
+better. The little church is rich in interesting memorials of the Gages,
+who have been the lords of Firle for many a long year.
+
+In the house is a portrait of Sir John Gage, the trusted friend of Henry
+VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, and, as Constable of the Tower, the gaoler
+(but a very kind one) of both Lady Jane Grey and the Princess Elizabeth,
+afterwards Good Queen Bess. In Harrison Ainsworth's romance _The
+Constable of the Tower_ Sir John Gage is much seen. Sir John was
+succeeded at Firle by his son Sir Edward, who, as High Sheriff of
+Sussex, was one of the judges of the Sussex martyrs, but who, even Foxe
+admits, exercised courtesy to them. Sir Edward's son, Sir John Gage, was
+the second husband of the Lady Penelope D'Arcy, Mr. Hardy's heroine,
+whose portrait we saw at Parham: who, being courted as a girl by Sir
+George Trenchard, Sir John Gage, and Sir William Hervey, promised she
+would marry all in turn, and did so. Sir George left her a widow at
+seventeen; to Sir John Gage she bore nine children.
+
+Returning from Firle to the high road, we come next, by following for a
+little a left turn, to Selmeston, the village where Mr. W. D. Parish,
+the rector for very many years, collected most of the entertaining
+examples of the Sussex dialect with which I have made so free in a later
+chapter. The church is very simple and well-cared for, with some pretty
+south windows. The small memorial tablets of brass which have been let
+into the floor symmetrically among the tiles seem to me a happier means
+of commemoration than mural tablets,--at least for a modest building
+such as this.
+
+[Sidenote: VAGARIES OF PRONUNCIATION]
+
+In losing your way in this neighbourhood do not ask the passer-by for
+Selmeston, but for Simson; for Selmeston, pronounced as spelt, does not
+exist. Sussex men are curiously intolerant of the phonetics of
+orthography. Brighthelmstone was called Brighton from the first,
+although only in the last century was the spelling modified to agree
+with the sound. Chalvington (the name of a village north of Selmeston)
+is a pretty word, but Sussex declines to call it other than Chawton.
+Firle becomes Furrel; Lewes is almost Lose, but not quite; Heathfield is
+Hefful. It is characteristic of a Sussex man that he always knows best;
+though all the masters of all the colleges should assemble about him and
+speak reasoningly of Selmeston he would leave the congress as
+incorrigible and self-satisfied a Simsonian as ever.
+
+Many years ago Selmeston churchyard possessed an empty tomb, in which
+the smugglers were wont to store their goods until a favourable time
+came to set them on the road. Any objections that those in authority
+might have had were silenced by an occasional tub. But of this more in
+the next chapter.
+
+[Sidenote: ALFRISTON]
+
+And so we come to Alfriston; but, as I said, the right way was over the
+hills, ascending them either at Itford (crossing the Ouse at Southease)
+or by that remarkable combe, one of the finest in Sussex, with an avenue
+leading to it, which is gained from a lane south of Beddingham. Firle
+Beacon's lofty summit is half-way between Beddingham and Alfriston, and
+from this height, with its magnificent view of the Weald, we descend
+steadily to the Cuckmere valley, of which Alfriston is the capital.
+
+Alfriston, which is now only a village street, shares with Chichester
+the distinction of possessing a market cross. Alfriston's specimen is,
+however, sadly mutilated, a mere relic, whereas Chichester's is being
+made more splendid as I write. Alfriston also has one of the oldest inns
+in the county--the "Star"--(finer far in its way than any of
+Chichester's seventy and more); but Ainsworth was wrong in sending
+Charles II. thither, in _Ovingdean Grange_. It is one of the inns that
+the Merry Monarch never saw. The "Star" was once a sanctuary, within the
+jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle, for persons flying from justice;
+and it is pleasant to sit in the large room upstairs, over the street,
+and think of fugitives pattering up the valley, with fearful backward
+glances, and hammering at the old door. One Birrel, in the reign of
+Henry VIII., having stolen a horse at Lydd, in Kent, took refuge here.
+The inn in those days was intended chiefly for the refreshment of
+mendicant friars.
+
+In 1767 the landlord was, according to a private letter, "as great a
+curiosity as the house." I wish we had some information about him, for
+the house is quaint and curious indeed, with its red lion sentinel at
+the side (figure-head from a Dutch wreck in Cuckmere Haven), and its
+carvings inside and out. The old and the new mingled very oddly when I
+was lately at Alfriston. Hearing a familiar sound, as of a battledore
+and a ball, in one of the rooms, I opened the door and discovered the
+landlord and a groom from the racing stables near by in the throes of
+the most modern of games, amid surroundings absolutely mediaeval.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CATHEDRAL OF THE DOWNS]
+
+The size of the grave and commanding church, which has been called the
+cathedral of the South Downs, alone proves that Alfriston was once a
+vastly more important place than it now is. Legend says that the
+foundations were first cut in the meadow known as Savyne Croft. There
+day after day the builders laid their stones, arriving each morning to
+find them removed to the Tye, the field where the church now stands. At
+last the meaning of the miracle entered their heads, and the church was
+erected on the new site. Its shape was determined by the slumbers of
+four oxen, who were observed by the architect to be sleeping in the form
+of a cross. Poynings church, under the Dyke Hill, near Brighton, was
+built, it has been conjectured, by the same architect. Within the
+cathedral of the South Downs, which is a fourteenth century building, is
+a superb east window, but it has no coloured glass. The register,
+beginning with 1504, is perhaps the oldest in England. Hard by the
+church is the simple little clergy house--unique in England, I
+believe--dating from pre-Reformation times. It has lately been very
+carefully restored.
+
+Alfriston once had a scholar in the person of Thomas Chowne, of Frog
+Firle, the old house on the road to Seaford, about a mile beyond the
+village. Chowne, who died in 1639, and was buried at Alfriston, is thus
+touched off by Fuller:--"Thomas Chune, Esquire, living at Alfriston in
+this County, set forth a small Manuall, intituled _Collectiones
+Theologicarum Conclusionum_. Indeed, many have much opposed it (as what
+book meeteth not with opposition?); though such as dislike must commend
+the brevity and clearness of his Positions. For mine own part, I am glad
+to see a Lay-Gentleman so able and industrious." Chowne's great great
+grandson, an antiquary, one night left some books too near his library
+fire; they ignited, and Frog Firle Place was in large part destroyed. It
+is now only a fragment of what it was, and is known as Burnt House.
+
+[Sidenote: AN ALFRISTON DOCTOR]
+
+An intermediate dweller at Frog Firle was one Robert Andrews, who, when
+unwell, seems to have been attended by William Benbrigg. Miss Florence
+A. Pagden, in her agreeable little history of Alfriston, from which I
+have been glad to borrow, prints two of Mr. Benbrigg's letters of kindly
+but vague advice to his patient. Here is one:--
+
+
+     "MR. ANDREWS,
+
+     "I have sent you some things which you may take in the manner
+     following, viz.:--of that in the bottle marked with a + you may
+     take of the quantity of a spoonfull or so, now and then, and at
+     night take some of those pills, drinking a little warm beer after
+     it, and in the morning take 2 spoonfulls of that in ------
+     bottle fasting an hour after it, and then you may eat something,
+     you may take also of the first, and every night a pill, and in the
+     morning. I hope this will do you good, which is the desire of him
+     who is your loving friend,
+
+                                                      "WM. BENBRIGG."
+
+
+Alfriston once had a race meeting of its own--the course is still to be
+seen on the southern slope of Firle Beacon--and it also fostered cricket
+in the early days. A famous single-wicket match was contested here in
+1787, between four men whose united ages amounted to 297 years. History
+records that the game was played with "great spirit and activity." Mr.
+Lower records, in 1870, that the largest pear and the largest apple ever
+known in England were both grown at Alfriston, but possibly the record
+has since been broken.
+
+The smallest church in Sussex is however still to Alfriston's credit,
+for Lullington church, on the hill side, just across the river and the
+fields to the east of Alfriston church, may be considered to belong to
+Alfriston without any violence to its independence. As a matter of fact,
+the church was once bigger, the chancel alone now standing. What
+Charles Lamb says of Hollington church in Chapter XXXVI. of this book,
+would be more fitting of Lullington.
+
+[Sidenote: HILL WALKS]
+
+We have come to Alfriston from Lewes, proposing to return there; but it
+might well be made a centre, so much fine hill country does it command.
+Alfriston to Seaford direct, over the hills and back of the cliffs and
+the Cuckmere valley; Alfriston to Eastbourne, crossing the Cuckmere at
+Litlington, and beginning the ascent of the hills at West Dean;
+Alfriston to Lewes over Firle Beacon; Alfriston to Newhaven direct;
+Alfriston to Jevington and Willingdon;--all these routes cover good Down
+country, making the best of primitive rambles by day and bringing one at
+evening back to the "Star," this mediaeval inn in the best of primitive
+villages. Few persons, however, are left who will climb hills--even
+grass hills--if they can help it; hence this counsel is likely to lead
+to no overcrowding of Fore Down, The Camp, Five Lords Burgh, South Hill,
+or Firle Beacon.
+
+I might here, perhaps, be allowed to insert some verses upon the new
+locomotion, since they bear upon this question of walking in remote
+places, and were composed to some extent in Sussex byways in the spring
+of 1903:--
+
+[Sidenote: A SONG AGAINST SPEED]
+
+
+             A SONG AGAINST SPEED.
+
+     Of speed the savour and the sting,
+         None but the weak deride;
+     But ah, the joy of lingering
+         About the country side!
+     The swiftest wheel, the conquering run,
+         We count no privilege
+     Beside acquiring, in the sun,
+         The secret of the hedge.
+
+     Where is the poet fired to sing
+         The snail's discreet degrees,
+     A rhapsody of sauntering,
+         A gloria of ease;
+     Proclaiming their's the baser part
+         Who consciously forswear
+     The delicate and gentle art
+         Of never getting there?
+
+     _To get there first!_--'tis time to ring
+         The knell of such an aim;
+     _To be the swiftest!_--riches bring
+         So easily that fame.
+     _To shine, a highway meteor,
+         Devourer of the map!_--
+     A vulgar bliss to choose before
+         Repose in Nature's lap!
+
+     Consider too how small a thing
+         The highest speed you gain:
+     A bee can frolic on the wing
+         Around the fastest train.
+     Think of the swallow in the air,
+         The salmon in the stream,
+     And cease to boast the records rare
+         Of paraffin and steam.
+
+     Most, most of all when comes the Spring,
+         Again to lay (as now)
+     Her hand benign and quickening
+         On meadow, hill and bough,
+     Should speed's enchantment lose its power,
+         For "None who would exceed
+     [The Mother speaks] a mile an hour,
+         My heart aright can read."
+
+     The turnpike from the car to fling,
+         As from a yacht the sea,
+     Is doubtless as inspiriting
+         As aught on land can be;
+     I grant the glory, the romance,
+         But look behind the veil--
+     Suppose that while the motor pants
+         You miss the nightingale!
+
+
+[Sidenote: ALCISTON]
+
+To return to Alfriston, there are two brief excursions (possible in the
+vehicles that are glanced at in the foregoing verses) which ought to be
+described here: to Alciston and to Wilmington. Alciston is a little
+hamlet under the east slope of Firle Beacon, practically no more than a
+farm house, a church, and dependant cottages. It is on a road that leads
+only to itself and "to the Hill" (as the sign-boards say hereabout); it
+is perhaps as nearly forgotten as any village in the county; and yet I
+know of no village with more unobtrusive charm. The church, which has no
+vicar of its own, being served from Selmeston, a mile away, stands high
+amid its graves, the whole churchyard having been heaped up and
+ramparted much as a castle is. In the hollow to the west of the church
+is part of the farmyard: a pond, a vast barn with one of the noblest red
+roofs in these parts, and the ruins of a stone pigeon house of great age
+and solidity, buttressed and built as if for a siege, in curious
+contrast to the gentle, pretty purpose for which it was intended.
+Between the church and the hill, and almost adjoining it, is the
+farmhouse, where the church keys are kept--a relic of Alciston Grange
+(once the property of Battle Abbey)--with odds and ends of its past life
+still visible, and a flourishing fig-tree at the back, heavy with fruit
+when I saw it under a September sun. The front of the house looks due
+east, across a valley of corn, to Berwick church, on a corresponding
+mound, and beyond Berwick to the Downs above Wilmington. And at the foot
+of the garden, on the top of the grey wall above the moat, is a long,
+narrow terrace of turf, commanding this eastern view--a terrace meet for
+Benedick and Beatrice to pace, exchanging raillery.
+
+In Berwick church, by the way, is a memorial to George Hall, a former
+rector, of whom it is said that his name "speaks all learning humane and
+divine," and that his memory is "precious both to the Muses and the
+Graces." The Reverend George Hall's works seem, however, to have
+vanished.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LONG MAN]
+
+Wilmington, north-east of Alfriston, occupies a corresponding position
+to that of Alciston in the north-west; but having a "lion" in the shape
+of the Long Man it has lost its virginal bloom. Wilmington is providing
+tea and ginger beer while Alciston nurses its unsullied inaccessibility.
+The Long Man is a rude figure cut in the turf by the monks of the
+Benedictine priory that once flourished here, the ruins of which are now
+incorporated (like Alciston Grange) in a farm house on the east of the
+village. At least, it is thought by some antiquaries that the effigy is
+the work of the monks; others pronounce it druidical. The most alluring
+of several theories, indeed, would have the figure to represent Pol or
+Balder, the Sun God, pushing aside the doors of darkness--Polegate (or
+Bolsgate) near by being brought in as evidence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+SMUGGLING
+
+     The Cuckmere Valley--Alfriston smuggling foreordained--Desperado
+     and benefactor--A witty minister--Hawker of Morwenstowe--The church
+     and run spirits--The two smugglers, the sea smuggler and the land
+     smuggler--The half-way house--The hollow ways of Sussex--Mr. Horace
+     Hutchinson quoted--Burwash as a smuggler's cradle.
+
+
+Alfriston's place in history was won by its smugglers. All Sussex
+smuggled more or less; but smuggling may be said to have been
+Alfriston's industry. Cuckmere Haven, close by, offered unique
+advantages: it was retired, the coast was unpopulated, the roadway
+inland started immediately from the beach, the valley was in friendly
+hands, the paths and contours of the hills were not easily learned by
+revenue men. Nature from the first clearly intended that Alfriston men
+should be too much for the excise; smuggling was predestined. Farmers,
+shepherds, ostlers, what you will that is respectable, these Alfriston
+men might be by day and when the moon was bright; but when the "darks"
+came round they were smugglers every one.
+
+[Sidenote: MR. BETTS'S READINESS]
+
+Chief of what was known nearly a hundred years ago as the "Alfriston
+Gang" was Stanton Collins, who lived at Market Cross House. Collins
+employed his men not only in assisting him in smuggling, but for other
+purposes removed from that calling by a wide gulf. Thus when Mr. Betts,
+the minister of the Lady Huntingdon chapel at Alfriston, was
+high-handedly suspended by the chief trustee of the chapel, on account
+of his opposition to that gentleman's proposed union with his deceased
+wife's sister, it was Collins's gang who invaded the chapel, ejected the
+new minister, replaced Mr. Betts in the pulpit, and mounted guard round
+it while he continued the service. Mr. Betts was equal to the occasion:
+he gave out the hymn "God moves in a mysterious way."
+
+Collins terrorised the country-side for some years (except upon the
+score of personal bravery and humorous audacity, I doubt if his place is
+quite on the golden roll of smugglers) and was at length brought within
+the power of the law for sheep-stealing, and sentenced to seven years.
+The last of his gang, Bob Hall, died in the workhouse at Eastbourne in
+1895, aged ninety-four.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CHURCH COMPLAISANT]
+
+Sussex may always be proud of her best smugglers. There were brutal
+scoundrels among them, such as the men that murdered Chater and were
+executed at Chichester in 1748 (the report may be read in Mr. H. L.
+Stephen's _State Trials_, vol. iv.); but the ordinary smuggler was often
+a fine rebellious fellow, courageous, resourceful, and gifted with a
+certain grim humour that led him, as we have seen, to hide his tubs as
+often in the belfry or the churchyard as anywhere else, and enough
+knowledge of character to tell him when he might secure the silence of
+the vicar with an oblatory keg. The Sussex clergy seemed to have needed
+very little encouragement to omit smuggling from the decalogue. It is, I
+think, the late Mr. Coker Egerton, of Burwash, who tells of a Sussex
+parson feigning illness a whole Sunday on hearing suddenly in the
+morning that a cargo, hard pressed by the revenue, had in despair been
+lodged among his pews. But the classical passage on this subject comes
+from Cornwall, from the pen of R. S. Hawker, the vicar of Morwenstowe
+and the author of "The Song of the Western Men." He was not himself a
+smuggler, but his parishioners had no scruples, and his heart was with
+the braver side of the business:--
+
+
+     It was full sea in the evening of an autumn day when a traveller
+     arrived where the road ran along by a sandy beach just above
+     high-water mark. The stranger, who was a native of some inland
+     town, and utterly unacquainted with Cornwall and its ways, had
+     reached the brink of the tide just as a "landing" was coming off.
+     It was a scene not only to instruct a townsman, but also to dazzle
+     and surprise. At sea, just beyond the billows, lay the vessel, well
+     moored with anchors at stem and stern. Between the ship and the
+     shore boats, laden to the gunwale, passed to and fro. Crowds
+     assembled on the beach to help the cargo ashore. On the one hand a
+     boisterous group surrounded a keg with the head knocked in, for
+     simplicity of access to the good cognac, into which they dipped
+     whatsoever vessel came first to hand; one man had filled his shoe.
+     On the other side they fought and wrestled, cursed and swore.
+     Horrified at what he saw, the stranger lost all self-command, and,
+     oblivious of personal danger, he began to shout, "What a horrible
+     sight! Have you no shame? Is there no magistrate at hand? Cannot
+     any justice of the peace be found in this fearful country?"
+
+     "No; thanks be to God," answered a hoarse, gruff voice. "None
+     within eight miles."
+
+     "Well, then," screamed the stranger, "is there no clergyman
+     hereabout? Does no minister of the parish live among you on this
+     coast?"
+
+     "Aye! to be sure there is," said the same deep voice.
+
+     "Well, how far off does he live? Where is he?"
+
+     "That's he, sir, yonder, with the lanthorn." And sure enough there
+     he stood, on a rock, and poured, with pastoral diligence, 'the
+     light of other days' on a busy congregation.
+
+
+The clergy, however, did not always know how useful they were. The Rev.
+Webster Whistler, of Hastings, records that he was awakened one night to
+receive a votive cask of brandy as his share of the spoil which, to his
+surprise, his church tower had been harbouring. A commoner method was to
+leave the gift--the tithe--silently on the doorstep. Revenue officers
+have perhaps been placated in the same way.
+
+Smuggling, in the old use of the word, is no more. The surreptitious
+introduction into this country of German cigars, eau de Cologne, and
+Tauchnitz novels, does not merit the term. A revised tariff having
+removed the necessity for smuggling, the game is over; for that is the
+reason of the disappearance of the smuggler rather than any increased
+vigilance on the part of the coastguard. The records of smuggling show
+that the difficulties offered to the profession by the Government were
+difficulties that existed merely to be overcome. Perhaps fiscal reform
+may restore the old pastime.
+
+[Sidenote: THE LAND SMUGGLER]
+
+The word smuggler arouses in the mind the figure of a bold and desperate
+mariner searching the coast for a signal that all is safe to land his
+cargo. But as a matter of fact the men who ran the greatest risks were
+not the marine smugglers at all, but the land smugglers who received the
+tubs on the shore and conveyed them to a hiding place preparatory to the
+journey to London, whither the major part was perilously taken. Such
+were the Alfriston smugglers. These were the men who fought the revenue
+officers and had the hair's-breadth escapes. These were the men whose
+houses were watched, whose every movement was suspected, who needed to
+be wily as the serpent and to know the country inch by inch.
+
+Not that the sea smuggler ran no risks. On the contrary, he was
+continually in danger from revenue cutters and the coastguards' boats.
+Bloody fights in the Channel were by no means rare. He was also often in
+peril from the elements; his endurance was superb; he had to be a sailor
+of genius, ready for every kind of emergency. But the land smuggler was
+more vulnerable than the sea smuggler, his rewards were smaller, and his
+operations were less simple. There is a vast difference between a dark
+night at sea and a dark night on land. Once the night fell the sea was
+the smuggler's own: he was invisible, inaudible. But the land was not
+less the revenue officer's: the land smuggler had to show his signal
+light, he had to roll casks over the beach, he had to carry them into
+security. His horse's hoofs could not be stilled as oars are muffled,
+his wheels bit noisily into the road, he was liable to be stopped at any
+turn. And he ran these risks from the coast right into London. I doubt
+if the land smuggler has had his due of praise. Sometimes the land
+smuggler had to be land smuggler and sea smuggler too, for many of the
+ships never troubled to make a landing at all. They sailed as near the
+shore as might be and then sank the tubs, which were always lashed
+together and kept on deck in readiness to be thrown overboard in case of
+the approach of a cutter. The position of the mooring having been
+conveyed to the confederates on shore, the vessel was at liberty to
+return to France for another cargo, leaving the responsibility of
+fishing up the tubs, and getting them to shore and away, wholly with the
+land smuggler.
+
+An old pamphlet, entitled, _The Trials of the Smugglers ... at the
+Assizes held at East Grinstead, March 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1748-9_, gives
+the following information about the duties and pay of the land smugglers
+at that day:--"Each Man is allowed Half a Guinea a Time, and his
+Expenses for Eating and Drinking, a Horse found him, and the Profits of
+a Dollop of Tea, which is about 13 Pounds Weight, being the Half of a
+Bag; which Profit, even from the most ordinary of their Teas, comes to
+24 or 25 Shillings; and they always make one Journey, sometimes two, in
+a Week." But these men would be underlings. There were, I take it, land
+smugglers in control of the operations who shared on a more lordly scale
+with their brethren in the boat.
+
+[Sidenote: HALF-WAY HOUSES]
+
+On all the routes employed by the land smugglers were certain cottages
+and farm-houses where tubs might be hidden. Houses still abound supplied
+with unexpected recesses and vast cellars where cargoes were stored on
+their way to London. In many cases, in the old days, these houses were
+"haunted," to put forth the legend of a ghost being the simplest way not
+only of accounting for such nocturnal noises as might be occasioned by
+the arrival or departure of smugglers and tubs, but also of keeping
+inquisitive folks at bay. Only a little while ago, during alterations to
+an old cottage high on the hills near my home in Kent, corroboration was
+given to a legend crediting the place with being a smuggler's "half-way
+house," by the builders' discovery of a cavern under the garden
+communicating with the cellar. For the gaining of such fastnesses the
+hollow ways of Sussex were maintained. Parson Darby's smuggling
+successor, in Mr. Horace Hutchinson's Sussex romance, _A Friend of
+Nelson_, thus described them to the hero of Withyham:--
+
+
+     "The sun strikes hot enough. Would you like to ride in the shade
+     awhile?"
+
+     "Immensely," I replied, "if I saw the shade."
+
+     "Keep after me, then," said he; "but the roan will. You need not
+     trouble!" In a moment, on his great big horse, he was forcing his
+     way down what had looked to me no more than a rabbit-run through
+     the roadside bushes. For a while I had noticed the road seemed
+     flanked by a mass of boskage below it on the right-hand side. Into
+     this, and downward, the man crammed his horse, squeezing his legs
+     into the horse's flank. I followed closely, and in a yard or two
+     found myself in a deep lane or cutting, very thickly overgrown, so
+     that only occasional gleams of sunshine crept in through the
+     leafage. We rode, as he had promised, in a most pleasant shade. The
+     floor of this lane or passage was not of the smoothest, and we went
+     at a foot's pace only, and in Indian file.
+
+     "What is the meaning of it all?" I asked him.
+
+[Sidenote: THE HOLLOW WAYS]
+
+     "Well," said he, "you have heard, I suppose, of the 'hollow ways,'
+     as they are called, of Sussex. This is one. They were in their
+     origin lanes, I take it, and perhaps the only means of getting
+     about the country. The rains, in this sandy soil, washing down,
+     gradually deepened and deepened them. Folks grew to use the new
+     roads as they were made, leaving the lanes unheeded, to be
+     overgrown. Here and there certain base fellows of the lewder sort,
+     commonly called smugglers, may have deepened them further, and
+     improved on what Nature had begun so well, with the result that you
+     can ride many a mile, mole-like, if you know your way, from the sea
+     coast north'ard, never showing your face above ground at all. That
+     is what it means," he ended.
+
+
+[Sidenote: "THE GENTLEMEN"]
+
+Smuggling was in the blood of the Sussex people. As the Cornishman said
+to Mr. Hawker, "Why should the King tax good liquor?" Why, indeed?
+Everyone sided with the smugglers, both on the coast and inland. A
+Burwash woman told Mr. Egerton that as a child, after saying her
+prayers, she was put early to bed with the strict injunction, "Now,
+mind, if the gentlemen come along, don't you look out of the window."
+The gentlemen were the smugglers, and not to look at them was a form of
+negative help, since he that has not seen a gentleman cannot identify
+him. Another Burwash character said that his grandfather had fourteen
+children, all of whom were "brought up to be smugglers." These would, of
+course, be land smugglers--Burwash being on a highway convenient for the
+gentlemen between the coast and the capital.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+GLYNDE AND RINGMER
+
+     Mount Caburn--The lark's song--William Hay, the poet of
+     Caburn--Glynde church and Glynde place--John Ellman--The South Down
+     sheep--Arthur Young--Ringmer and William Penn--The Ringmer mud--The
+     ballad of "The Ride to Church"--Oxen on the Hills--The old Sussex
+     roads--Bad travelling--Ringmer and Gilbert White.
+
+
+One of the pleasantest short walks from Lewes takes one over Mount
+Caburn to Glynde, from Glynde to Ringmer, and from Ringmer over the
+hills to Lewes again.
+
+The path to Mount Caburn winds upward just beyond the turn of the road
+to Glynde, under the Cliffe. Caburn is not one of the highest of the
+Downs (a mere 490 feet, whereas Firle Beacon across the valley is
+upwards of 700): but it is one of the friendliest of them, for on its
+very summit is a deep grassy hollow (relic of ancient British
+fortification) where on the windiest day one may rest in that perfect
+peace that comes only after climbing. Caburn is not unique in this
+respect; there is, for example, a similar hollow in the hill above
+Kingly Vale; but Caburn has a deeper cavity than any other that I can
+recall. On the roughest day, thus cupped, one may hear, almost see, the
+gale go by overhead; and on such a mild spring day as that when I was
+last there, towards the end of April, there is no such place in which to
+lie and listen to the lark. If one were asked to name an employment
+consistent with perfect idleness it would be difficult to suggest a
+better than that of watching a lark melting out of sight into the sky,
+and then finding it again. This you may do in Caburn's hollow as
+nowhere else. The song of the lark thus followed by eye and ear--for
+song and bird become one--passes naturally into the music of the
+spheres: there exist in the universe only yourself and this cosmic
+twitter.
+
+The Lewes golfers, of both sexes, pursue their sport some way towards
+Caburn, and in the valley below the volunteers fire at their butts; but
+I doubt if the mountain proper will ever be tamed. Picnics are held on
+the summit on fine summer days, but for the greater part of the year it
+belongs to the horseman, the shepherd and the lark.
+
+Mount Caburn gave its title to a poem by William Hay, of Glyndebourne
+House, in 1730, which ends with these lines, in the manner of an
+epitaph, upon their author:
+
+
+     Here liv'd the Man, who to these fair Retreats
+     First drew the Muses from their ancient Seats:
+     Tho' low his Thought, tho' impotent his Strain,
+     Yet let me never of his Song complain;
+     For this the fruitless Labour recommends,
+     He lov'd his native Country, and his Friends.
+
+
+William Hay (1695-1755) was author also of a curious Essay on Deformity,
+which Charles Lamb liked, and of several philosophical works, and was a
+very diligent member of Parliament.
+
+[Illustration: _Glynde._]
+
+[Sidenote: GLYNDE]
+
+Descending Caburn's eastern slope, and passing at the foot the mellowest
+barn roof in the county, beautifully yellowed by weather and time, we
+come to Glynde, remarkable among Sussex villages for a formal Grecian
+church that might have been ravished from a Surrey Thames-side village
+and set down here, so little resemblance has it to the indigenous Sussex
+House of God. As a matter of fact it was built in 1765 by the Bishop of
+Durham--the Bishop being Richard Trevor, of the family that then owned
+Glynde Place; which is hard by the church, a fine Elizabethan mansion, a
+little sombre, and very much in the manner of the great houses in the
+late S. E. Waller's pictures, the very place for a clandestine interview
+or midnight elopement. The present owner, a descendant of the Trevors
+and of the famous John Hampden, enemy of the Star Chamber and ship
+money, is Admiral Brand.
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN ELLMAN]
+
+Glynde's most famous inhabitant was John Ellman (1753-1832) the breeder
+of sheep, who farmed here from 1780 to 1829 and was the village's kindly
+autocrat and a true father to his men. The last of the patriarchs, as he
+might be called, Ellman lodged all his unmarried labourers under his own
+roof, giving them when they married enough grassland for a pig and a
+cow, and a little more for cultivation. He built a school for the
+children of his men, and permitted no licensed house to exist in
+Glynde. Not that he objected to beer; on the contrary he considered it
+the true beverage for farm labourers; but he preferred that they should
+brew it at home. It was John Ellman who gave the South Down sheep its
+fame and brought it to perfection.
+
+[Sidenote: ARTHUR YOUNG]
+
+The most interesting account of South Down sheep is to be found in
+Arthur Young's _General View of the Agriculture of the County of
+Sussex_, which is one of those books that, beginning their lives as
+practical, instructive and somewhat dry manuals, mellow, as the years go
+by, into human documents. Taken sentence by sentence Young has no charm,
+but his book has in the mass quite a little of it, particularly if one
+loves Sussex. He studied the country carefully, with special emphasis
+upon the domain of the Earl of Egremont, an agricultural reformer of
+much influence, whom we have met as a collector of pictures and the
+friend of painters. For the Earl not only brought Turner into Sussex
+with his brushes and palette, but introduced a plough from Suffolk and
+devised a new light waggon. The other hero of Young's book is
+necessarily John Ellman, whose flock at Glynde he subjected to close
+examination. Thomas Ellman, of Shoreham, John's cousin, he also approved
+as a breeder of sheep, but it is John that stood nighest the Earl of
+Egremont on Young's ladder of approbation. John Ellman's sheep were
+considered the first of their day, equally for their meat and their
+wool. I will not quote from Young to any great extent, lest vegetarian
+readers exclaim; but the following passage from his analysis of the
+South Down type must be transplanted here for its pleasant carnal
+vigour: "The shoulders are wide; they are round and straight in the
+barrel; broad upon the loin and hips; shut well in the twist, which is a
+projection of flesh in the inner part of the thigh that gives a fulness
+when viewed behind, and makes a South Down leg of mutton remarkably
+round and short, more so than in most other breeds."
+
+[Sidenote: THE SOUTH DOWN SHEEP]
+
+John Ellman by no means satisfied all his fellow breeders that he was
+right. His neighbour at Glynde, Mr. Morris, differed from him in the
+matter of crossing, and his cousin Thomas had other views on many points
+touching the flock. In the following passage Arthur Young expresses the
+extent to which individuality in sheep breeding may run:--"The South
+Down farmers breed their sheep with faces and legs of a colour, just as
+suits their fancy. One likes black, another sandy, a third speckled, and
+one and all exclaim against white. This man concludes that legs and
+faces with an inclination to white are infallible signs of tenderness,
+and do not stand against the severity of the weather with the same
+hardiness as the darker breed; and they allege that these sorts will
+fall off in their flesh. A second will set the first right, and
+pronounce that, in a lot of wethers, those that are soonest and most
+fat, are white-faced; that they prove remarkable good milkers; but that
+white is an indication of a tender breed. Another is of opinion that, by
+breeding the lambs too black, the wool is injured, and likewise apt to
+be tainted with black, and spotted, especially about the neck, and not
+saleable. A fourth breeds with legs and faces as black as it is
+possible; and he too is convinced that the healthiness is in proportion
+to blackness; whilst another says, that if the South Down sheep were
+suffered to run in a wild state, they would in a very few years become
+absolutely black. All these are the opinions of eminent breeders: in
+order to reconcile them, others breed for speckled faces; and it is the
+prevailing colour."
+
+It is told that when the Duke of Newcastle used to pass through Glynde,
+on his way from Halland House, near East Hoathly, to Bishopstone, the
+peal of welcome was rung on ploughshares, since there was but one bell.
+
+Ringmer, which lies about two miles north of Glynde, is not in itself a
+village of much beauty. Its distinction is to have provided William Penn
+with a wife--Gulielma Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, a
+Puritan, whose bust is in the church and who died at the siege of
+Arundel Castle. The great Quaker thus took to wife the daughter of a
+soldier. When Gulielma Penn died, at the age of fifty, her husband wrote
+of her: "She was a Publick, as well as Private Loss; for she was not
+only an excellent Wife and Mother, but an Entire and Constant Friend, of
+a more than common Capacity, and greater Modesty and Humility; yet most
+equal and undaunted in Danger. Religious as well as Ingenuous, without
+Affectation. An easie Mistress, and Good Neighbour, especially to the
+Poor. Neither lavish nor penurious, but an Example of Industry as well
+as of other Vertues: Therefore our great Loss tho' her own Eternal
+Gain."
+
+[Sidenote: GODLY WIVES]
+
+In Ringmer Church, I might add, is a monument to Mrs. Jeffray (_nee_
+Mayney), wife of Francis Jeffray of South Malling, with another
+beautiful testimony to the character of a good wife:--
+
+
+     Wise, modest, more than can be marshall'd heere,
+     (Her many vertues would a volume fill)
+     For all heaven's gifts--in many single sett--
+     In Jeffray's _Maney_ altogether mett.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A DETERMINED CHURCHWOMAN]
+
+Ringmer was long famous for its mud and bad roads. Defoe (or another)
+says in the _Tour through Great Britain_:--"I travelled through the
+dirtiest, but, in many respects, the richest and most profitable country
+in all that part of England. The timber I saw here was prodigious, as
+well in quantity as in bigness; and seemed in some places to be suffered
+to grow only because it was so far from any navigation, that it was not
+worth cutting down and carrying away. In dry summers, indeed, a great
+deal is conveyed to Maidstone and other places on the Medway; and
+sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call in Sussex
+a tug, drawn by twenty-two oxen; and, even then, it is carried so little
+a way, and thrown down, and left for other tugs to take up and carry on,
+that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets to Chatham. For,
+if once the rain comes on, it stirs no more that year, and sometimes a
+whole summer is not dry enough to make the road passable. Here I had a
+sight which, indeed, I never saw in any part of England before--namely,
+that going to a church at a country village, not far from Lewes, I saw
+an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality, I assure you, drawn to
+church in her coach by six oxen; nor was it done in frolick or humour,
+but from sheer necessity, the way being so stiff and deep that no horses
+could go in it." The old lady was not singular in her method of
+attending service, for another writer records seeing Sir Herbert
+Springett, father of Sir William, drawn to church by eight oxen: a
+determination to get to his pew at any cost that led to the composition
+of the following ballad, which is now printed for the first time:--
+
+[Sidenote: THE RIDE TO CHURCH]
+
+
+               THE RIDE TO CHURCH.
+
+      "A true sonne of the Church of England."
+                            _Epitaph on Sir Herbert Springett,
+                                        in Ringmer Church._
+
+     Let others sing the wild career
+     Of Turpin, Gilpin, Paul Revere.
+     A gentler pace is mine. But hear!
+
+     The raindrops fell, splash! thud! splash! thud!
+     Till half the country-side was flood,
+     And Ringmer was a waste of mud.
+
+     The sleepy Ouse had grown a sea,
+     Where here and there a drowning tree
+     Cast up its arms beseechingly;
+
+     And cattle that in fairer days
+     Beside its banks were wont to graze
+     Now viewed the scene in mild amaze,
+
+     And, huddled on an island mound,
+     Sent forth so dolorous a sound
+     As made the sadness more profound.
+
+     And then--at last--one Sunday broke
+     When villagers, delighted, woke
+     To find the sun had flung its cloak
+
+     Of leaden-coloured cloud aside.
+     All jubilant they watched him ride,
+     For see, the land was glorified:
+
+     The morning pulsed with youth and mirth,
+     It was as though upon the earth
+     A new and gladder age had birth.
+
+     The lark exulted in the blue,
+     Triumphantly the rooster crew,
+     The chimneys laughed, the sparks up-flew;
+
+     And rolling westward out of sight,
+     Like billows of majestic height,
+     The Downs, transfigured in the light,
+
+     Seemed such a garb of joy to wear,
+     So young and radiant an air,
+     God might but just have set them there.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Sir Herbert Springett, Ringmer's squire,
+     (No better man in all the shire)--
+     He too was filled with kindling fire,
+
+     Which, working in him, did incite
+     The worthy and capacious knight
+     To doughty deeds of appetite.
+
+     Sir Herbert's lady watched her lord
+     Range mightily about the board
+     Which she of her abundance stored,
+
+     (The Lady Barbara, for whom
+     The blossoms of the simple-room
+     Diffused their friendliest perfume,
+
+     Than who none quicklier heard the call
+     Of true distress, and left the Hall
+     Eager to do her gentle all,
+
+     When village patients needed aid.
+     And O the rich Marchpane she made!
+     And O the rare quince marmalade!)
+
+     Just as the squire was satisfied,
+     The noise of feet was heard outside;
+     A knock. "Come in!" Sir Herbert cried.
+
+     And lo! John Grigg in Sunday smock;
+     Begged pardon, pulled an oily lock;
+     Explained: "The mud's above the hough.
+
+     "No horse could draw 'ee sir," he said.
+     "Humph!" quoth the squire and scratched his head.
+     "Then yoke the oxen in instead."
+
+     (A lesser man would gladly turn
+     His chair to fire again, and learn
+     How fancifully logs can burn,
+
+     Grateful for such immunity
+     From parson. Not the squire; for see,
+     "True sonne of England's Church" was he.)
+
+     So, as he ordered, was it done.
+     The oxen came forth one by one,
+     Their wide horns glinting in the sun,
+
+     And to the coach were yoked. Then--dressed,
+     As squires should be, in glorious best,
+     With wonderful brocaded vest,--
+
+     Out came Sir Herbert, took his seat,
+     Waved "Barbara, farewell, my Sweet!"
+     And off they started, all complete.
+
+     Although they drew so light a load
+     (For them!) so heavy was the road,
+     John Grigg was busy with his goad.
+
+     The cottagers in high delight
+     Ran out to see the startling sight
+     And make obeisance to the knight,
+
+     While floated through the liquid air,
+     And o'er the sunlit meadows fair,
+     The throbbing belfry's call to prayer.
+
+     At last, and after many a lurch
+     That shook Sir Herbert in his perch,
+     John Grigg drew up before the church;
+
+     Moreover not a minute late.
+     The villagers around the gate
+     Were filled with wonder at his state,
+
+     And, promptly, though 'twas sabbath tide,
+     "Three cheers for squire--Hooray!" they cried....
+     Such was Sir Herbert Springett's ride.
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Sad is the sequel, sad but true--
+     For while in sermon-time a few
+     Deep snores resounded from the pew
+
+     Reserved for squire, by others there
+     The tenth commandment (men declare)
+     Was being broken past repair:
+
+     For, thinking how they had to roam
+     Through weary wastes of sodden loam
+     Ere they could win to fire and home,
+
+     In spite of parson's fervid knocks
+     Upon his cushion orthodox,
+     They "coveted their neighbour's ox."
+
+
+[Sidenote: OXEN OF THE HILLS]
+
+Oxen are now rarely seen on the Sussex roads, but on the hill sides a
+few of the farmers still plough with them; and may it be long before the
+old custom is abandoned! There is no pleasanter or more peaceful sight
+than--looking up--that of a wide-horned team of black oxen, smoking a
+little in the morning air, drawing the plough through the earth, while
+the ploughman whistles, and the ox-herd, goad in hand, utters his Saxon
+grunts of incitement or reproof. The black oxen of the hills are of
+Welsh stock, the true Sussex ox being red. The "kews," as their shoes
+are called, may still be seen on the walls of a smithy here and there.
+Shoeing oxen is no joke, since to protect the smith from their horns
+they have to be thrown down; their necks are held by a pitchfork, and
+their feet tied together.
+
+Sussex roads were terrible until comparatively recent times. An old
+rhyme credits "Sowseks" with "dirt and myre," and Dr. Burton, the author
+of the _Iter Sussexiensis_, humorously found in it a reason why Sussex
+people and beasts had such long legs. "Come now, my friend," he wrote,
+in Greek, "I will set before you a sort of problem in Aristotle's
+fashion:--Why is it that the oxen, the swine, the women, and all other
+animals, are so long legged in Sussex? May it be from the difficulty of
+pulling the feet out of so much mud by the strength of the ankle, that
+the muscles get stretched, as it were, and the bones lengthened?"
+
+[Sidenote: ROUGH ROADS]
+
+When, in 1703, the King of Spain visited the Duke of Somerset at
+Petworth he had the greatest difficulty in getting here. One of his
+attendants has put on record the perils of the journey:--"We set out at
+six o'clock in the morning (at Portsmouth) to go to Petworth, and did
+not get out of the coaches, save only when we were overturned or stuck
+fast in the mire, till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas hard
+service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day,
+without eating anything, and passing through the worst ways that I ever
+saw in my life: we were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our
+coach which was leading, and his highness's body coach, would have
+suffered very often, if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently
+poised it, or supported it with their shoulders, from Godalming almost
+to Petworth; and the nearer we approached the duke's, the more
+inaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost six
+hours time to conquer."
+
+To return to Ringmer, it was there that Gilbert White studied the
+tortoise (see Letter xiii of _The Natural History of Selborne_). The
+house where he stayed still stands, and the rookery still exists. "These
+rooks," wrote the naturalist, "retire every morning all the winter from
+this rookery, where they only call by the way, as they are going to
+roost in deep woods; at the dawn of day they always revisit their
+nest-trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that
+act, as it were, as their harbingers." An intermediate owner of the
+house where Gilbert White resided, which then belonged to his aunt
+Rebecca Snooke, ordered all nightingales to be shot, on the ground that
+they kept him awake.
+
+[Sidenote: PLASHETTS]
+
+While at Ringmer, if a glimpse of very rich park land is needed, it
+would be worth while to walk three miles north to Plashetts, which
+combines a vast tract of wood with a small park notable at once for its
+trees, its brake fern, its lakes, and its water fowl. But if one would
+gain it by rail, Isfield is the station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+UCKFIELD AND BUXTED
+
+     The Crowborough district--Isfield--Another model
+     wife--Framfield--The poet Realf--Uckfield--The Maresfield
+     rocks--Puritan names in Sussex--Buxted park--Heron's Ghyll--A
+     perfect church.
+
+
+Uckfield, on the line from Lewes to Tunbridge Wells, is our true
+starting point for the high sandy and rocky district of Crowborough,
+Rotherfield and Mayfield; but we must visit on the way Isfield, a very
+pretty village on the Ouse and its Iron River tributary. Isfield is
+remarkable for the remains of Isfield Place, once the home of the
+Shurleys (connected only by marriage with the Shirleys of Wiston). The
+house can never have been so fine as Slaugham Place, but it is evident
+that abundance also reigned here, as there. Over the main door was the
+motto "Non minor est virtus quam querere parta tueri," which Horsfield
+whimsically translates "Catch is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better."
+In the Shurley chapel, one of the sweetest spots in Sussex, are brasses
+and monuments to the family, notably the canopied altar tomb to Sir John
+Shurley, who died in 1631, his two wives (Jane Shirley of Wiston and
+Dorothy Bowyer, _nee_ Goring, of Cuckfield) and nine children, who kneel
+prettily in a row at the foot. Of these children it is said in the
+inscription that some "were called into Heaven and the others into
+several marriages of good quality"; while of Dorothy Shurley it is
+prettily recorded (this, as we have seen, being a district rich in
+exemplary wives) that she had "a merite beyond most of her time, ...
+her pitty was the clothing of the poore ... and all her minutes were but
+steppes to heaven." Our county has many fine monuments, but I think
+that, this is the most charming of all.
+
+[Sidenote: FRAMFIELD]
+
+At Framfield, two miles east of Uckfield, which we may take here, we
+again enter the iron country, and for the first time see Sussex hops,
+which are grown largely to the north and east of this neighbourhood.
+
+[Illustration: _Framfield._]
+
+[Sidenote: RICHARD REALF]
+
+Framfield has a Tudor church and no particular interest. In 1792 eleven
+out of fifteen persons in Framfield, whose united ages amounted to one
+thousand and thirty-four years, offered, through the county paper, to
+play a cricket match with an equal number of the same age from any part
+of Sussex; but I do not find any record of the result. Nor can I find
+that any one at Framfield is proud of the fact that here, in 1834, was
+born Richard Realf, the orator and poet, son of Sussex peasants. In
+England his name is scarcely known; and in America, where his work was
+done, it is not common knowledge that he was by birth and parentage
+English. Realf was the friend of man, liberty and John Brown; he fought
+against slavery in the war, and helped the cause with some noble verses;
+and he died miserably by his own hand in 1878, leaving these lines
+beside his body:--
+
+
+     "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When
+       For me this end has come and I am dead,
+     And the little voluble, chattering daws of men
+       Peck at me curiously, let it then be said
+     By some one brave enough to speak the truth:
+       Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong.
+     Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth
+       To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song,
+     And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart,
+       He wrought for liberty, till his own wound
+     (He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art
+       Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned,
+     And sank there where you see him lying now
+     With the word "Failure" written on his brow.
+
+     But say that he succeeded. If he missed
+       World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage
+     Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed
+       Daily by those high angels who assuage
+     The thirstings of the poets--for he was
+       Born unto singing--and a burthen lay
+     Mightily on him, and he moaned because
+       He could not rightly utter to the day
+     What God taught in the night. Sometimes, nathless,
+       Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame,
+     And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress;
+       And benedictions from black pits of shame,
+     And little children's love, and old men's prayers,
+     And a Great Hand that led him unawares.
+
+     So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred
+       With big films--silence! he is in his grave.
+     Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred;
+       Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave.
+     Nor did he wait till Freedom had become
+       The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips;
+     He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb
+       And all His arching skies were in eclipse.
+     He was a-weary, but he fought his fight,
+       And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed
+     To see the august broadening of the light
+       And new earths heaving heavenward from the void.
+     He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet--
+     Plant daisies at his head and at his feet.
+
+
+Uckfield's main street is divided sharply into two periods--from the
+station to the road leading to the church all is new; beyond, all is
+old. The town is not interesting in itself, but it commands good
+country, and has a good inn, the Maiden's Head. It is also a good
+specimen of the quieter market-town of the past--with a brewery (hiding
+behind a wonderful tree braced with kindly iron bands), a water mill
+(down by the railway), and several solid comfortable houses for the
+doctor and the lawyer and the brewer and the parson, with ample gardens
+behind them.
+
+Uckfield was once the home of Jeremiah Markland, the great classic, who
+acted as tutor here to Edward Clarke, son of the famous William Clarke,
+rector of Buxted, and father of Edward Daniel Clarke, the traveller. It
+is agreeable to remember that Fanny Burney passed through the town with
+Mrs. Thrale in 1779, although she found nothing to interest her.
+
+[Sidenote: THE UCKFIELD ROCKS]
+
+Uckfield is the southern boundary of the rock district of which we saw
+something at West Hoathly, and it is famous for the sandstone cliffs in
+the grounds of High Rocks, an estate on the south of the town. The
+unthinking untidiness and active penknives of the holiday makers made it
+recently necessary for the grounds to be closed to strangers. Close by,
+however, just off the road from Uckfield to Maresfield, is a rocky tract
+that is free to all. It consists of about an acre of grey, sandy
+boulders, some rising to a height of twenty feet or so, which remind one
+a little of the _rochers_ in the Forest of Fontainebleau, although on a
+smaller scale. All are worn with the feet of adventurous boys enjoying
+one of the best natural playgrounds in the county. Here blackberries
+come to rich perfection, the sun's ripening warmth being thrown back
+from the hot sand.
+
+When I first knew Maresfield church, many years ago, its aged vicar
+rolled out "Thou shalt do no mur-r-r-der" with an accusing timbre that
+seemed to bring the sin home to all of us. He had also so peculiar a way
+of pronouncing "Albert," that his prayer for our rulers seemed to make
+an invidious distinction, and ask a blessing, not for all, but for all
+but Edward, Prince of Wales.
+
+[Sidenote: PURITAN NAMES]
+
+Some of the oddest of the composite pietistic names that broke out over
+England during the Puritan revolution are to be found in Sussex
+registers. In 1632, Master Performe-thy-vowes Seers of Maresfield
+married Thomasine Edwards. His full name was too much for the village,
+and four years later is found an entry recording the burial of "Vowes
+Seers" pure and simple. The searcher of parish registers from whose
+articles in the _Sussex Daily News_ I have already quoted, has also
+found that Heathfield had many Puritan names, among them "Replenished,"
+which was given to the daughter of Robert Pryor in 1600. There was also
+a Heathfield damsel known as "More-Fruits." Mr. Lower prints the
+following names from a Sussex jury list in the seventeenth century:
+Redeemed Compton of Battel, Stand-fast-on-high Stringer of Crowhurst,
+Weep-not Billing of Lewes, Called Lower of Warbleton, Elected Mitchell
+of Heathfield, Renewed Wisberry of Hailsham, Fly-fornication Richardson
+of Waldron, The-Peace-of-God Knight of Burwash,
+Fight-the-good-fight-of-Faith White of Ewhurst, and Kill-sin Pemble of
+Withyham. Also a Master More-Fruits Fowler of East Hoathly, for it seems
+that in such names there was no sex.
+
+Among the curious Sussex surnames found by the student of the county
+archives who is quoted above are the following:--
+
+
+     Pitchfork    Sweetname  Lies
+     Devil        Slybody    Hogsflesh
+     Leper        Fidge      Backfield
+     Handshut     Beatup     Breathing
+     Juglery      Rougehead  Whiskey
+     Hollowbone   Punch      Wildgoose
+     Stillborne   Padge      Ann.
+
+
+Almost every name here would have pleased Dickens, while some might have
+been invented by him, notably Fidge and Padge. One can almost see Mr.
+Fidge and Mr. Padge drolling it in his pages.
+
+[Sidenote: BUXTED DEER]
+
+From the Maresfield rocks Buxted is easily reached, about a mile due
+east; but a far prettier approach is through Buxted Park, which is
+gained by a footpath out of Uckfield's main street. The charm of Buxted
+is its deer. Sussex, as we have seen, is rich in parks containing deer,
+but I know of none other where one may be so certain of coming close to
+these beautiful creatures. Nor can I recall any other deer that are so
+exquisitely dappled; but that may be because the Buxted deer were the
+first I ever saw, thirty years ago, and we like to think the first the
+best. Certainly they are the friendliest, or least timid. The act of
+going to church is invested at Buxted with an almost unique attraction,
+since the deer lie hard by the path. Indeed, the last time I went to
+church at Buxted I never passed through the door at all, but sat on a
+gravestone throughout the service and watched the herd in its graceful
+restlessness. That was twelve years ago. The other day I watched them
+again and could see no change. Some of the stags were still as of old
+almost bowed beneath their antlers, although one at any rate was free,
+for a keeper who passed carried a pair of horns in his hand.
+
+[Illustration: _In Buxted Park._]
+
+[Sidenote: RALPH HOGGE]
+
+The old house at the beginning of the footpath to the church, with a hog
+in bas-relief on its facade, is known as the Hog House, and is said to
+have been the residence of Ralph Hogge. Who was Ralph Hogge? Who is
+Hiram Maxim? Who was Krupp? Who was Nordenfelt? It was Ralph Hogge,
+iron-master, who in the year 1543 made the first English metal cannon.
+So at any rate say tradition and Holinshed. Buxted is otherwise most
+pacific of villages, sleepy and undiscovered. In the early years of the
+last century it boasted the possession of a labourer with a memory of
+amazing tenacity, one George Watson, who, otherwise almost imbecile, was
+unable to forget anything he had once seen, or any figure repeated to
+him.
+
+On the road between Maresfield and Crowborough is Heron's Ghyll, the
+residence of Mr. Fitzalan Hope. It stands to the east of the road, in
+one of those hollow sites that alone won the word "eligible" from a
+Tudor builder. Hard by the road is the perfect little Early English
+Roman Catholic church which Mr. Hope built in 1897, a miracle, in these
+hurried florid days, of honest work and simple modest beauty. The church
+being Roman Catholic one may with confidence turn aside to rest a little
+in its cool seclusion, relieved of the irritating search for the sexton
+of the national establishment, and freed from his haunting presence and
+suggestion that the labourer is worthy of more than his hire.
+
+[Sidenote: CLOSED CHURCHES]
+
+While on this subject I might remark that a county vicar describing the
+antiquities of his neighbourhood in one of the Sussex Archaeological
+Society's volumes, writes magnanimously: "A debt of gratitude is
+certainly due to our Roman Catholic predecessors (whatever error might
+mix itself with their piety and charity) for erecting such noble
+edifices, in a style of strength to endure for a late posterity." It
+seems to me that a very simple way of discharging a portion of this debt
+would be to imitate the excellent habit of leaving the church doors wide
+open, as practised by those Roman Catholic predecessors. My own impulse
+to enter many of the Sussex churches has been principally antiquarian or
+aesthetic, but to rest amid their gray coolnesses is a legitimate desire
+which should be fostered rather than discouraged, particularly as it is
+under such conditions that the soul even of the stranger whose motive is
+curiosity is often comforted. The arguments in favour of keeping
+churches closed are unknown to me. Doubtless they are numerous and
+ingenious, but, doubtless equally, a locked church is a confession of
+failure; while to urge that one has but to ask for the key to be able
+to enter a church is no true reply, since hospitality, whether to the
+body or the soul, loses in sweetness and effect as it loses in
+spontaneity.
+
+[Sidenote: TO CROWBOROUGH]
+
+From Heron's Ghyll to Crowborough is a steady climb for three miles,
+with the heathery wastes of Ashdown Forest on the left and the hilly
+district around Mayfield on the right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CROWBOROUGH AND MAYFIELD
+
+     Crowborough the suburban--Rotherfield's three rivers--The extra
+     ribs--Wild flowers and railway companies--The perfect hill--An arid
+     district--St. Dunstan and the Devil--Why Tunbridge Wells waters are
+     chalybeate--St. Dunstan's feats--An unencouraging _memento
+     mori_--Mayfield church--Mayfield street--The diary of Mr. Walter
+     Gale, schoolmaster.
+
+
+In the spring of this year (1903) the walls and fences of Crowborough
+were covered with the placards of a firm of estate agents describing the
+neighbourhood (in the manner of the great George Robins) as "Scotland in
+Sussex." The simile may be true of the Ashdown Forest side of the Beacon
+(although involving an unnecessary confusion of terms), but "Hampstead
+in Sussex" would be a more accurate description of Crowborough proper.
+Never was a fine remote hill so be-villa'd. The east slope is all
+scaffold-poles and heaps of bricks, new churches and chapels are
+sprouting, and the many hoardings announce that Follies, Pierrots, or
+conjurors are continually imminent. Crowborough itself has shops that
+would not disgrace Croydon, and a hotel where a Lord Mayor might feel at
+home. Houses in their own grounds are commoner than cottages, and near
+the summit the pegs of surveyors and the name-boards of avenues yet to
+be built testify to the charms which our Saxon Caledonia has already
+exerted.
+
+But to say this is not to say all. Crowborough may be populous and
+over-built; but it is still a glorious eminence, the healthiest and most
+bracing inland village in the county, and the key to its best moorland
+country. Since Crowborough's normal visitor either plays golf or is
+contented with a very modest radius, the more adventurous walker may
+quickly be in the solitudes.
+
+In the little stone house below the forge Richard Jefferies lived for
+some months at the end of his life.
+
+[Sidenote: ROTHERFIELD]
+
+Crowborough is crowned by a red hotel which can never pass into the
+landscape; Rotherfield, its companion hill on the east, on the other
+side of the Jarvis Brook valley, is surmounted by a beautiful church
+with a tall shingled spire, that must have belonged to the scene from
+the first. This spire darts up from the edge of the forest ridge like a
+Pharos for the Weald of Kent. The church was dedicated to St. Denis of
+Paris by a Saxon chieftain who was cured of his ills by a pilgrimage to
+the Saint's monastery. That was in 792. In the present church, which
+retains the dedication, is an ancient mural painting representing the
+martyrdom of St. Lawrence. There is also a Burne-Jones window.
+
+Were it not for Rotherfield both Sussex and Kent would lack some of
+their waterways, for the Rother and the Ouse rise here, and also the
+Medway. A local saying credits the women of Rotherfield with two ribs
+more than the men, to account for their superior height.
+
+Under a hedge half-way between Rotherfield and Jarvis Brook grow the
+largest cowslips in Sussex, as large as cowslips may be without changing
+their sex. But this is all cowslip country--from the field of Rother to
+the field of Uck. And it is the land of the purple orchis too, the
+finest blooms of which are to be found on the road between Rotherfield
+and Mayfield; but you must scale a fence to get them, because (like all
+the best wild flowers) they belong to the railway.
+
+Between Rotherfield and Mayfield is a little hill, trim and conical as
+though Miss Greenaway had designed it, and perfect in deportment, for it
+has (as all little conical hills should have) a white windmill on its
+top. Around the mill is a circular track for carts, which runs nearer
+the sails than any track I remember ever to have dared to walk on.
+Standing by this mill one opens many miles of Kent and Surrey: due north
+the range of chalk Downs on which is the Pilgrim's Way, between Merstham
+and Westerham, and in front of that Toy's Hill and Ide Hill and their
+sandy companions, on the north edge of the Weald.
+
+Mayfield is a city on a hill on the skirts of the hot hop district of
+which Burwash is the Sussex centre. To walk about it even in April is no
+exhilaration; but in August one thinks of Sahara. I lived in Mayfield
+one August and could barely keep awake; and we used to look across at
+the rolling chalk Downs in the south, between Ditchling and Lewes, and
+long for their cool, wind-swept heights. They can be hot too, but chalk
+is never so hot as sand, and a steady climb to a summit, over turf
+odorous of wild thyme, is restful beside the eternal hills and valleys
+of the hop district.
+
+[Sidenote: SAINT DUNSTAN]
+
+Mayfield has the best street and the best architecture of any of these
+highland villages. Also it has the distinction of having done most for
+mankind, since without Mayfield there would have been no water to cure
+jaded London ladies and gentlemen at Tunbridge Wells. According to
+Eadmer, who wrote one of the lives of Dunstan, that Saint, when
+Archbishop of Canterbury, built a wooden church at Mayfield and lived in
+a cell hard by. St. Dunstan, who was an expert goldsmith, was one day
+making a chalice (or, as another version of the legend says, a
+horseshoe) when the Devil appeared before him. Instantly recognising his
+enemy, and being aware that with such a foe prompt measures alone are
+useful, St. Dunstan at once pulled his nose with the tongs, which
+chanced happily to be red hot. Wrenching himself free, the Devil leaped
+at one bound from Mayfield to Tunbridge Wells, where, plunging his nose
+into the spring at the foot of the Pantiles, he "imparted to the water
+its chalybeate qualities," and thus made the fortune of the town as a
+health resort. To St. Dunstan therefore, indirectly, are all drinkers of
+these wells indebted. For other drinkers he introduced or invented the
+practice of fixing pins in the sides of drinking cups, in order that a
+thirsty man might see how he was progressing and a bibulous man be
+checked.
+
+[Sidenote: MAYFIELD]
+
+When consecrating his little church at Mayfield St. Dunstan discovered
+it to be a little out of the true position, east and west. He therefore
+applied his shoulder and rectified the error.
+
+The remains of Mayfield Palace, the old abode of the Archbishops of
+Canterbury, join the church. After it had passed into the hands of the
+crown--for Cranmer made a bargain with the King by which Mayfield was
+exchanged for other property--Sir Thomas Gresham lived here, and Queen
+Elizabeth has dined under its roof. The Palace is to be seen only
+occasionally, for it is now a convent, Mayfield being another of the
+county's many Roman Catholic outposts. In the great dining-room are the
+tongs which St. Dunstan used.
+
+The church, dedicated to Mayfield's heroic saint, has one of the broader
+shingled spires of Sussex, as distinguished from the slender spires of
+which Rotherfield is a good example. Standing high, it may be seen from
+long distances. The tower is the original Early English structure. Four
+more of the old Sussex iron tomb slabs may be seen at Mayfield. In the
+churchyard, says Mr. Lower, was once an inscription with this
+uncomplimentary first line:--
+
+
+     O reader, if that thou canst read,
+
+
+It continued:--
+
+
+       Look down upon this stone;
+     Death is the man, do you what you can,
+       That never spareth none!
+
+
+In Mayfield's street even the new houses have caught comeliness from
+their venerable neighbours. It undulates from gable to gable, and has
+two good inns. The old timbered house in the middle of the east side is
+that to which Richard Jefferies refers without enthusiasm in the passage
+which I quote in a later chapter from his essay on Buckhurst Park. In
+Louis Jennings' _Field Paths and Green Lanes_ the house comes in for
+eulogy.
+
+Vicar of Mayfield in 1361 and following years was John Wickliffe, who
+has too often been confused with his great contemporary and namesake,
+the reformer. And the village claims as a son Thomas May (1595-1650),
+playwright, translator of Lucan's "Pharsalia," secretary to Parliament
+and friend of Ben Jonson.
+
+In the Sussex Archaeological Collections is printed the journal of Walter
+Gale, schoolmaster at Mayfield in the latter half of the eighteenth
+century, from which a few extracts may be given:
+
+"1750. I found the greatest part of the school in a flow, by reason of
+the snow and rain coming through the leads. The following extempore
+verse I set for a copy:--
+
+
+     Abandon every evil thought
+     For they to judgment will be brought.
+
+
+In passing the Star I met with Mr. Eastwood; we went in and spent 2_d._
+apiece.
+
+[Sidenote: PRESAGES OF DEATH]
+
+"I went to Mr. Sawyer's.... One of his daughters said that she expected
+a change in the weather as she had last night dreamt of a deceased
+person." The editor remarks that this superstition still lingers (or did
+fifty years ago) in the Weald of Sussex. Walter Gale adds:--"I told them
+in discourse that on Thursday last the town clock was heard to strike 3
+in the afternoon twice, once before the chimes went, and a 2nd time
+pretty nearly a 1/4 of an hour after.... The strikes at the 2nd striking
+seemed to sound very dull and mournfully; this, together with the
+crickets coming to the house at Laughton just at our coming away, I look
+upon to be sure presages of my sister's death."
+
+A year later:--"My mother, to my great unhappiness, died in the 83rd
+year of her age, agreeable to the testimony I had of a death in our
+family on the 10th of May last."
+
+"Mr. Rogers came to the school, and brought with him the four volumes of
+_Pamela_, for which I paed him 4_s._ 6_d._, and bespoke Duck's _Poems_
+for Mr. Kine, and a _Caution to Swearers_ for myself.
+
+"Sunday. I went to church at Hothley. Text from St. Matthew 'Take no
+thought, saying, What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, or
+wherewithal shall we be clothed,' and I went to Jones', where I spent
+2_d._, and there came Thomas Cornwall, and treated me with a pint of
+twopenny.
+
+"Mr. James Kine came; we smoaked a pipe together and we went and took a
+survey of the fair; we went to a legerdemain show, which we saw with
+tolerable approbation.
+
+"May 28th. Gave attendance at a cricket-match, played between the
+gamesters at Burwash and Mayfield to the advantage of the latter."
+
+[Sidenote: OLD KENT]
+
+A series of quarrels with old Kent occupy much of the diary. Old Kent,
+it seems, used to enter the school house and vilify the master, not, I
+imagine, without cause. Thus:--"He again called me upstart, runagate,
+beggarly dog, clinched his fist in my face, and made a motion to strike
+me, and declared he would break my head. He did not strike me, but
+withdrew in a wonderful heat, and ended all with his general maxim, 'The
+greater scholler, the greater rogue!'"
+
+Mr. Gale was removed from the school in 1771 for neglecting his duties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+HEATHFIELD AND THE "LIES."
+
+     The two Heathfields--Heathfield Park--"Hefful" Fair and the
+     spring--The death of Jack Cade--Warbleton's martyr--Three "lies"
+     and all true--An ecclesiastical confection--The bloodthirsty
+     Colonel Lunsford--Halland--Tarble Down--Breeches Wood--Mr. Thomas
+     Turner's diary--Laughton--Chiddingly's inhospitable fane--The
+     Jefferay cheese--A devoted campanologist--Hellingly--Hailsham.
+
+
+There are two Heathfields: the old village, with its pleasant Sussex
+church and ancient cottages close to the park gates; and the new brick
+and slate town that has gathered round the station and the natural
+gas-works. The park lies between the two, remarkable among Sussex parks
+for the variety of its trees and the unusual proportion of them. The
+spacious lawns which are characteristic of the parks in the south, here,
+on Heathfield's sandy undulations, give place to heather, fern and
+trees. I never remember to have seen a richer contrast of greens than in
+early spring, looking west from the house, between the masses of dark
+evergreens that had borne the rigours of the winter and the young leaves
+just breaking through. Heathfield's park is, I think, the loveliest in
+Sussex, lying as it does on a southern slope, with its opulence of
+foliage, its many rushing burns (the source of the Cuckmere), its hidden
+ravines and deep silent tarns, and its wonderful view of the Downs and
+the sea. The park once belonged to the Dacres of Hurstmonceaux, whom we
+are about to meet. Traces of the original house, dating probably from
+Henry VII.'s reign, are still to be seen in the basement. Upon this
+foundation was imposed a new building towards the end of the seventeenth
+century. The park was then known as Bailey Park. A century later, George
+Augustus Eliott (afterwards Lord Heathfield), the hero of Gibraltar, and
+earlier of Cuba, acquired it with his Havana prize money. After Lord
+Heathfield died, in 1790, the park became the property of Francis
+Newbery, son of the bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard. The present
+owner, Mr. Alexander, has added greatly to the house.
+
+[Sidenote: GIBRALTAR TOWER]
+
+Gibraltar Tower, on the highest point of the park, was built by Newbery
+in honour of his predecessor. From its summit a vast prospect is
+visible, and forty churches, it is said, may be counted. I saw but few
+of these. In the east, similarly elevated, is seen the Brightling
+Needle. Mr. Alexander has gathered together in the tower a number of
+souvenirs of old English life which make it a Lewes Castle museum in
+little. Here are stocks, horn glasses, drinking vessels, rushlight
+holders, leather bottels, and one of those quaint wooden machines for
+teaching babies to walk. An old manuscript history of the tower, in Mr.
+Alexander's possession, contains at least one passage that is perhaps
+worth noting, as it may help to clear up any confusion that exists in
+connection with Lord Heathfield's marriage. "The lady to whom his
+lordship meant to be united," says the historian, "and who would
+certainly have been his wife had not death stepped in, is the sister of
+a lady of whom his lordship was extremely fond, but she, dying about ten
+years ago, he transferred his affections to the other, who is about
+thirty-five years of age."
+
+A Heathfield worthy of a hundred years ago was Sylvan Harmer, chiefly a
+stone cutter (he cut the stone for the tower), but also the modeller in
+clay of some very ingenious and pretty bas-relief designs for funeral
+urns, notably a group known as Charity.
+
+[Sidenote: JACK CADE]
+
+The following scene from _The Second Part of Henry VI._ although
+Shakespeare places it in Kent, belongs to a little hamlet known as Cade
+Street, close to Heathfield:--
+
+
+     Scene X.--Kent. IDEN'S _Garden._
+
+     _Enter_ CADE.
+
+     _Cade._ Fie on ambition! fie on myself; that have a sword, and yet
+     am ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods,
+     and durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now
+     am I so hungry, that if I might have a lease of my life for a
+     thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick-wall
+     have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat grass, or pick
+     a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach
+     this hot weather. And, I think, this word sallet was born to do me
+     good: for, many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been
+     cleft with a brown bill; and, many a time, when I have been dry,
+     and bravely marching, it hath served me instead of a quart-pot to
+     drink in; and now the word sallet must serve me to feed on.
+
+     _Enter_ IDEN, _with Servants, behind._
+
+     _Iden._ Lord! who would live turmoiled in the court,
+             And may enjoy such quiet walks as these!
+             This small inheritance, my father left me,
+             Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.
+             I seek not to wax great by others' waning;
+             Or gather wealth I care not with what envy:
+             Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,
+             And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.
+
+     _Cade._ Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray,
+     for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt
+     betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king by carrying my
+     head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and
+     swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.
+
+     _Iden._ Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,
+             I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?
+             Is't not enough, to break into my garden,
+             And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,
+             Climbing my walls in spite of me, the owner,
+             But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?
+
+     _Cade._ Brave thee? ay, by the best blood that ever was broached,
+     and beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five
+     days; yet, come thou and thy five men; and if I do not leave you
+     all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.
+
+     _Iden._ Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,
+             That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,
+             Took odds to combat a poor famished man.
+             Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine,
+             See if thou canst outface me with thy looks:
+             Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;
+             Thy hand is but a finger to my fist;
+             Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon;
+             My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast;
+             And if mine arm be heaved in the air,
+             Thy grave is digged already in the earth.
+             As for words, whose greatness answers words,
+             Let this my sword report what speech forbears.
+
+     _Cade._ By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I
+     heard.--Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the
+     burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I
+     beseech Jove on my knees, thou mayest be turned to hobnails. [_They
+     fight._ CADE _falls_.] O! I am slain. Famine, and no other, hath
+     slain me: let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but
+     the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden;
+     and be henceforth a burying-place to all that do dwell in this
+     house, because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.
+
+     _Iden._ Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
+             Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed,
+             And hang thee o'er my tomb, when I am dead:
+             Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,
+             But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat,
+             To emblaze the honour that thy master got.
+
+     _Cade._ Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from
+     me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be
+     cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine, not
+     by valour.
+                                                                [_Dies._
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF CADE]
+
+That was on July 12, 1450. Cade did not die at once, but on the way to
+London, whither he was conveyed in a cart. On the 16th his body was
+drawn and quartered and dragged through London on a hurdle. One quarter
+was then sent to Blackheath; the other three to Norwich, Gloucester and
+Salisbury. Cade's head was set up on London Bridge. Iden was knighted. A
+pillar was erected at Cade Street by Newbery on the piece of land that
+he possessed nearest to the probable scene of the event. "Near this spot
+was slain the notorious rebel Jack Cade, by Alexander Iden, Esq.," is
+the inscription.
+
+Slaughter Common, near Heathfield, is said to be the scene of a more
+wholesale carnage, Heathfield people claiming that there Caedwalla in
+635 fought the Saxons and killed Eadwine, king of Northumbria. Sylvan
+Harmer, in his manuscript history of Heathfield, is determined that
+Heathfield shall have the credit of the fray, but, as a matter of fact,
+if Slaughter Common really took its name from a battle it was a very
+different one, for Caedwalla and Eadwine met, not at Heathfield, but
+Hatfield Chase, near Doncaster.
+
+[Sidenote: HEFFUL CUCKOO FAIR]
+
+It is at Hefful Cuckoo fair on April 14--Hefful being Sussex for
+Heathfield--that, tradition states, the old woman lets the cuckoo out of
+her basket and starts him on his course through the summer months. A
+local story tells of a Heathfield man who had a quarrel with his wife
+and left for Ditchling. After some days he returned, remarking, "I've
+had enough of furrin parts--nothing like old England yet."
+
+If any one, walking from Heathfield towards Burwash, is astonished to
+find a "Railway Inn," let him spend no time in seeking a station, for
+there is none within some miles. This inn was once "The Labour in Vain,"
+with a signboard representing two men hard at work scrubbing a nigger
+till the white should gleam through. Then came a scheme to run a line to
+Eastbourne, midway between the present Heathfield line and the Burwash
+line, and enterprise dictated the changing of the sign to one more in
+keeping with the times. The railway project was abandoned but the inn
+retains its new style.
+
+Warbleton, a village in the iron country, two miles south of Heathfield,
+is famous for its association with Richard Woodman, the Sussex martyr,
+who is mentioned in an earlier chapter. His house and foundry were hard
+by the churchyard. The wonderful door in the church tower, a miracle of
+intricate bolts and massive strength, has been attributed to Woodman's
+mechanical skill; and the theory has been put forward that he made this
+door for his own strong room, and it was afterwards moved to the church.
+Another story says that he was imprisoned in the church tower before
+being taken for trial. Warbleton has the following terse and confident
+epitaph upon Ann North, wife of the vicar, who died in 1780:--
+
+
+     Through death's rough waves her bark serenely trod,
+     Her pilot Jesus, and her harbour God.
+
+
+From Horeham Road station, next Heathfield on the way to Hailsham, we
+can walk across the country to East Hoathly, and thence to Chiddingly
+and Hellingly, where we come to the railway again. ("East Hoathly,
+Chiddingly and Hellingly," says a local witticism: "three lies and all
+true.") East Hoathly stands high in not very interesting country, nor is
+it now a very interesting village. But it is remarkable for an admirably
+conducted inn and a church unique (in my experience of old churches) in
+its interior for a prettiness that is little short of aggressive.
+Whatever paint and mosaic can do to remove plain white surfaces has been
+done here, and the windows are gay with new glass. Were the building a
+new one, say at Surbiton, the effect would be harmonious; but in an old
+village in Sussex it seems a mistake.
+
+[Sidenote: THE CHILD-EATER]
+
+Colonel Thomas Lunsford, of Whyly (now no more), near East Hoathly, a
+cavalier and friend of Charles I., was notoriously a consumer of the
+flesh of babes. How he won such a reputation is not known, but it never
+left him. _Hudibras_ mentions his tastes; in one ballad of the time he
+figures as Lunsford that "eateth of children," and in another, recording
+his supposed death, he is found with "a child's arm in his pocket."
+After a stormy but courageous career he died in 1691, innocent of
+cannibalism. It was this Lunsford who fired at his relative, Sir
+Nicholas Pelham of Halland, as he was one day entering East Hoathly
+church. The huge bullet, the outcome of a long feud, missed Nicholas and
+lodged in the church door, where it remained for many years. It cost
+Lunsford _L_8,000 and outlawry.
+
+Halland, one of the seats of the Pelhams, about a mile from the
+village, was just above Terrible Down, a tract of wild land, on which,
+according to local tradition, a battle was once fought so fiercely that
+the soldiers were up to their knees in blood. In the neighbourhood it
+is, of course, called Tarble Down. Local tradition also states of a
+certain piece of woodland attached to the glebe of this parish, called
+Breeches Wood, that it owes its name to the circumstance that an East
+Hoathly lady, noticing the vicar's breeches to be in need of mending,
+presented to him and his successors the wood in question as an endowment
+to ensure the perpetual repair of those garments.
+
+Halland House no longer exists, but in the days of the great Duke of
+Newcastle, who died in 1768, it was famous for its hospitality and
+splendour. We meet with traces of its influence in the frequent
+inebriation, after visits there, of Mr. Thomas Turner, a mercer and
+general dealer of East Hoathly, who kept a diary from 1764, recording
+some of his lapses and other experiences. A few passages from the
+extracts quoted in the Sussex Archaeological Collections may be given:
+
+"My wife read to me that moving scene of the funeral of Miss Clarissa
+Harlow. Oh, may the Supreme Being give me grace to lead my life in such
+a manner as my exit may in some measure be like that divine creature's.
+
+"This morn my wife and I had words about her going to Lewes to-morrow.
+Oh, what happiness must there be in the married state, when there is a
+sincere regard on both sides, and each partie truly satisfied with each
+other's merits. But it is impossible for tongue or pen to express the
+uneasiness that attends the contrary.
+
+"Sunday, August 28th, 1756, Thos. Davey, at our house in the evening, to
+whom I read five of Tillotson's Sermons.
+
+"Sunday, October 28th, Thos. Davey came in the evening to whom I read
+six of Tillotson's sermons.
+
+"This day went to Mrs. Porter's to inform them the livery lace was not
+come, when I think Mrs. Porter treated me with as much imperious and
+scornful usage as if she had been, what I think she is, more of a Turk
+and Infidel than a Christian, and I an abject slave.
+
+"I went down to Mrs. Porter's and acquainted her that I would not get
+her gown before Monday, who received me with all the affability,
+courtesy, and good humour imaginable. Oh! what a pleasure would it be to
+serve them was they always in such a temper; it would even induce me,
+almost, to forget to take a just profit.
+
+[Sidenote: POTATIONS]
+
+"We supped at Mr. Fuller's and spent the evening with a great deal of
+mirth, till between one and two. Tho. Fuller brought my wife home upon
+his back. I cannot say I came home sober, though I was far from being
+bad company.
+
+"The curate of Laughton came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having
+bought some things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them) dined
+with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in liquor, and
+being so complaisant as to keep him company, I was quite drunk. How do I
+detest myself for being so foolish!
+
+"In the even, read the twelfth and last book of Milton's _Paradise
+Lost_, which I have now read twice through.
+
+"Mr. Banister having lately taken from the smugglers a freight of
+brandy, entertained Mr. Carman, Mr. Fuller, and myself, in the even,
+with a bowl of punch."
+
+Although the Pelhams owned Halland, their principal seat was at
+Laughton, two or three miles to the south. Of that splendid Tudor
+mansion little now remains but one brick tower. In the vault of the
+church, which has been much restored, no fewer than forty Pelhams
+repose.
+
+Chiddingly church presents the completest contrast to East Hoathly's
+over-decorated yet accessible fane that could be imagined. Its door is
+not only kept shut, but a special form of locked bar seems to have been
+invented for it, and on the day that I was last there the churchyard
+gate was padlocked too. The spire of white stone (visible for many
+miles)--a change from the customary oak shingling of Sussex--has been
+bound with iron chains that suggest the possibility of imminent
+dissolution, while within, the building is gloomy and time-stained. If
+at East Hoathly the church gives the impression of a too complacent
+prosperity, here we have precisely the reverse. The state of the
+Jefferay monument behind a row of rude railings is in keeping.
+
+[Sidenote: THE PROUD JEFFERAYS]
+
+In the Jefferay monument, by the way, the statues at either side stand
+on two circular tablets, which are not unlike the yellow cheeses of
+Alkmaar. It was possibly this circumstance that led to the myth that the
+Jefferays, too proud to walk on the ground, had on Sundays a series of
+cheeses ranged between their house and the church, on which to step.
+Their house was Chiddingly Place, built by Sir John Jefferay, who died
+in 1577. Remains of this great mansion are still to be seen. It was
+during Sir John's time that Chiddingly had a vicar, William Titelton,
+sufficiently flexible to retain the living under Henry VIII., Edward
+VI., Mary, and Elizabeth.
+
+Here, in the eighteenth century, lived one William Elphick, a devotee of
+bell-ringing, who computed that altogether he had rung Chiddingly's
+triple bell for 8,766 hours (which is six hours more than a year), and
+who travelled upwards of ten thousand miles to ring the bells of other
+churches.
+
+Mark Antony Lower, most interesting of the Sussex archaeologists, to whom
+these pages have been much indebted, was born at Chiddingly in 1813.
+
+Mr. Egerton in his _Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_ tells a story of a
+couple down Chiddingly way who agreed upon a very satisfactory system of
+danger signals when things were not quite well with either of them.
+Whenever the husband came home a little "contrary" he wore his hat on
+the back of his head, and then she never said a word; and if she came in
+a little cross and crooked she threw her shawl over her left shoulder,
+and then he never said a word.
+
+[Sidenote: CZAR AND QUAKER]
+
+A little to the east of Hellingly is Amberstone, the scene, in 1814, of
+a pretty occurrence. Alexander, the Czar of all the Russias, travelling
+from Brighton to Dover with his sister, the Duchess of Oldenburgh, saw
+Nathaniel and Mary Rickman of Amberstone standing by their gate. From
+their dress he knew them to be Quakers, a sect in which he was much
+interested. The carriage was therefore stopped, and the Czar and his
+sister entered the house; they were taken all over it, praised its
+neatness, ate some lunch, and parted with the kindest expressions of
+goodwill, the Czar shaking hands with the Quaker and the Duchess kissing
+the Quakeress.
+
+A few minutes on the rail bring us to Hailsham, an old market town,
+whose church, standing on the ridge which borders Pevensey Level on the
+west, is capped with pinnacles like that of East Grinstead. Walking a
+few yards beyond the church one comes to the edge of the high ground,
+with nothing before one but miles and miles of the meadow-land of this
+Dutch region, green and moist and dotted with cattle.
+
+Hailsham's principal value to the traveller is that it is the station
+for Hurstmonceux; whither, however, we are to journey by another route.
+Otherwise the town exists principally in order that bullocks and sheep
+may change hands once a week. Hailsham's cattle market covers three
+acres, and on market days the wayfarers in the streets need the agility
+of a picador.
+
+We ought, however, to see Michelham Priory while we are here. It lies
+two miles to the west of Hailsham, in the Cuckmere valley--now a
+beautifully-placed farmhouse, but once a house of Augustinian Canons
+founded in the reign of Henry III. Here one may see the old monkish fish
+stews, so useful on Fridays, in perfection. The moat, where fish were
+probably also caught, is still as it was, and the fine old
+three-storied gateway and the mill belonging to the monks stand to this
+day. The priory, although much in ruins, is very interesting, and well
+worth seeing and exploring with a reconstructive eye.
+
+[Sidenote: THE TWO DICKERS]
+
+A little further west is the Dicker--or rather the two Dickers, Upper
+Dicker and Lower Dicker, large commons between Arlington in the south
+and Chiddingly in the north. Here are some of the many pottery works for
+which Sussex is famous.
+
+[Illustration: _Beachy Head._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+EASTBOURNE
+
+     Select Eastbourne. The "English Salvator Rosa"--Sops and Ale--Beau
+     Chef--"The Breeze on Beachy Head"--Shakespeare and the Cliff--"To a
+     Seamew"--The new lighthouse--Parson Darby and his cave--East Dean's
+     bells--The Two Sisters--Friston's Selwyn monument--West Dean.
+
+
+Eastbourne is the most select, or least democratic, of the Sussex
+watering places. Fashion does not resort thither as to Brighton in the
+season, but the crowds of excursionists that pour into Brighton and
+Hastings are comparatively unknown at Eastbourne; which is in a sense a
+private settlement, under the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire.
+Hastings is of the people; Brighton has a character almost continental;
+Eastbourne is select. Lawn tennis and golf are its staple products, one
+played on the very beautiful links behind the town hard by Compton
+Place, the residence of the Duke; the other in Devonshire Park. It is
+also an admirable town for horsemanship.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ENGLISH SALVATOR ROSA]
+
+Eastbourne has had small share in public affairs, but in 1741 John
+Hamilton Mortimer, the painter, sometimes called the Salvator Rosa of
+England, was born there. From a memoir of him which Horsfield prints, I
+take passages: "Bred on the sea-coast, and amid a daring and rugged race
+of hereditary smugglers, it had pleased his young imagination to walk on
+the shore when the sea was agitated by storms--to seek out the most
+sequestered places among the woods and rocks, and frequently, and not
+without danger, to witness the intrepidity of the contraband
+adventurers, who, in spite of storms and armed excisemen, pursued their
+precarious trade at all hazards. In this way he had, from boyhood,
+become familiar with what amateurs of art call 'Salvator Rosa-looking
+scenes'; he loved to depict the sea chafing and foaming, and fit 'to
+swallow navigation up'--ships in peril, and pinnaces sinking--banditti
+plundering, or reposing in caverns--and all such situations as are
+familiar to pirates on water, and outlaws on land....
+
+"Of his eccentricities while labouring under the delusion that he could
+not well be a genius without being unsober and wild, one specimen may
+suffice. He was employed by Lord Melbourne to paint a ceiling at his
+seat of Brocket Hall, Herts; and taking advantage of permission to angle
+in the fish-pond, he rose from a carousal at midnight, and seeking a
+net, and calling on an assistant painter for help, dragged the preserve,
+and left the whole fish gasping on the bank in rows. Nor was this the
+worst; when reproved mildly, and with smiles, by Lady Melbourne, he had
+the audacity to declare, that her beauty had so bewitched him that he
+knew not what he was about. To plunder the fish-pond and be impertinent
+to the lady was not the way to obtain patronage. The impudent painter
+collected his pencils together, and returned to London to enjoy his
+inelegant pleasures and ignoble company."
+
+Horsfield states that "a custom far more honoured by the breach than the
+observance heretofore existed in the manor of Eastbourne; in compliance
+with which, after any lady, or respectable farmer or tradesman's wife,
+was delivered of a child, certain quantities of food and of beer were
+placed in a room adjacent to the sacred edifice; when, after the second
+lesson was concluded, the whole agricultural portion of the worshippers
+marched out of church, and devoured what was prepared for them. This was
+called _Sops and Ale_."
+
+[Sidenote: EASTBOURNE RUG]
+
+John Taylor the water Poet, whom we saw, at Goring, the prey of fleas
+and the Law, made another journey into the county between August 9th and
+September 3rd, 1653, and as was usual with him wrote about it in
+doggerel verse. At Eastbourne he found a brew called Eastbourne Rug:--
+
+
+     No cold can ever pierce his flesh or skin
+     Of him who is well lin'd with Rug within;
+     Rug is a lord beyond the Rules of Law,
+     It conquers hunger in a greedy maw,
+     And, in a word, of all drinks potable,
+     Rug is most puissant, potent, notable.
+     Rug was the Capital Commander there,
+     And his Lieutenant-General was strong beer.
+
+
+Possibly it was in order to contest the supremacy of Rug (which one may
+ask for in Eastbourne to-day in vain) that Newhaven Tipper sprang into
+being.
+
+The Martello towers, which Pitt built during the Napoleonic scare at the
+beginning of last century, begin at Eastbourne, where the cliffs cease,
+and continue along the coast into Kent. They were erected probably quite
+as much to assist in allaying public fear by a tangible and visible
+symbol of defence as from any idea that they would be a real service in
+the event of invasion. Many of them have now disappeared.
+
+[Sidenote: BEACHY HEAD]
+
+Eastbourne's glory is Beachy Head, the last of the Downs, which stop
+dead at the town and never reappear in Sussex again. The range takes a
+sudden turn to the south at Folkington, whence it rolls straight for
+the sea, Beachy Head being the ultimate eminence. (The name Beachy has,
+by the way, nothing to do with the beach: it is derived probably from
+the Normans' description--"beau chef.") About Beachy Head one has the
+South Downs in perfection: the best turf, the best prospect, the best
+loneliness, and the best air. Richard Jefferies, in his fine essay, "The
+Breeze on Beachy Head," has a rapturous word to say of this air (poor
+Jefferies, destined to do so much for the health of others and so little
+for his own!).--"But the glory of these glorious Downs is the breeze.
+The air in the valleys immediately beneath them is pure and pleasant;
+but the least climb, even a hundred feet, puts you on a plane with the
+atmosphere itself, uninterrupted by so much as the tree-tops. It is air
+without admixture. If it comes from the south, the waves refine it; if
+inland, the wheat and flowers and grass distil it. The great headland
+and the whole rib of the promontory is wind-swept and washed with air;
+the billows of the atmosphere roll over it.
+
+"The sun searches out every crevice amongst the grass, nor is there the
+smallest fragment of surface which is not sweetened by air and light.
+Underneath the chalk itself is pure, and the turf thus washed by wind
+and rain, sun-dried and dew-scented, is a couch prepared with thyme to
+rest on. Discover some excuse to be up there always, to search for stray
+mushrooms--they will be stray, for the crop is gathered extremely early
+in the morning--or to make a list of flowers and grasses; to do
+anything, and, if not, go always without any pretext. Lands of gold have
+been found, and lands of spices and precious merchandise: but this is
+the land of health."
+
+Seated near the edge of the cliff one realises, as it is possible
+nowhere else to realise, except perhaps at Dover, the truth of Edgar's
+description of the headland in _King Lear_. It seems difficult to think
+of Shakespeare exploring these or any Downs, and yet the scene must have
+been in his own experience; nothing but actual sight could have given
+him the line about the crows and choughs:
+
+
+     Come on, sir; here's the place:--stand still.--How fearful
+     And dizzy 't is, to cast one's eyes so low!
+     The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,
+     Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
+     Hangs one that gathers samphire--dreadful trade!
+     Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
+     The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
+     Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
+     Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
+     Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
+     That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
+     Cannot be heard so high.--I'll look no more,
+     Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
+     Topple down headlong.
+
+
+[Sidenote: "TO A SEAMEW"]
+
+Choughs are rare at Beachy Head, but jackdaws and gulls are in great and
+noisy profusion; and this reminds me that it was on Beachy Head in
+September, 1886, that the inspiration of one of the most beautiful
+bird-poems in our language came to its author--the ode "To a Seamew" of
+Mr. Swinburne. I quote five of its haunting stanzas:
+
+
+     We, sons and sires of seamen,
+       Whose home is all the sea,
+     What place man may, we claim it;
+     But thine----whose thought may name it?
+     Free birds live higher than freemen,
+       And gladlier ye than we----
+     We, sons and sires of seamen,
+       Whose home is all the sea.
+
+     For you the storm sounds only
+       More notes of more delight
+     Than earth's in sunniest weather:
+     When heaven and sea together
+     Join strengths against the lonely
+       Lost bark borne down by night,
+     For you the storm sounds only
+       More notes of more delight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     The lark knows no such rapture,
+       Such joy no nightingale,
+     As sways the songless measure,
+     Wherein thy wings take pleasure:
+     Thy love may no man capture,
+       Thy pride may no man quail;
+     The lark knows no such rapture,
+       Such joy no nightingale.
+
+     And we, whom dreams embolden,
+       We can but creep and sing
+     And watch through heaven's waste hollow
+     The flight no sight may follow
+     To the utter bourne beholden
+       Of none that lack thy wing:
+     And we, whom dreams embolden,
+       We can but creep and sing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Ah, well were I for ever,
+      Wouldst thou change lives with me,
+     And take my song's wild honey,
+     And give me back thy sunny
+     Wide eyes that weary never,
+       And wings that search the sea;
+     Ah, well were I for ever,
+       Wouldst thou change lives with me.
+
+
+[Sidenote: PARSON DARBY]
+
+The old lighthouse on Beachy Head, the Belle Tout, which first flung its
+beams abroad in 1831, has just been superseded by the new lighthouse
+built on the shore under the cliff. Near the new lighthouse is Parson
+Darby's Hole--a cavern in the cliff said to have been hewed out by the
+Rev. Jonathan Darby of East Dean as a refuge from the tongue of Mrs.
+Darby. Another account credits the parson with the wish to provide a
+sanctuary for shipwrecked sailors, whom he guided thither on stormy
+nights by torches. In a recent Sussex story by Mr. Horace Hutchinson,
+called _A Friend of Nelson_, we find the cave in the hands of a powerful
+smuggler, mysterious and accomplished as Lavengro, some years after
+Darby's death.
+
+[Sidenote: UNDER BEACHY HEAD]
+
+A pleasant walk from Eastbourne is to Birling Gap, a great smuggling
+centre in the old days, where the Downs dip for a moment to the level of
+the sea. Here at low tide one may walk under the cliffs. Richard
+Jefferies, in the essay from which I have already quoted, has a
+beautiful passage of reflections beneath the great bluff:--"The sea
+seems higher than the spot where I stand, its surface on a higher
+level--raised like a green mound--as if it could burst in and occupy the
+space up to the foot of the cliff in a moment. It will not do so, I
+know; but there is an infinite possibility about the sea; it may do what
+it is not recorded to have done. It is not to be ordered, it may
+overleap the bounds human observation has fixed for it. It has a potency
+unfathomable. There is still something in it not quite grasped and
+understood--something still to be discovered--a mystery.
+
+"So the white spray rushes along the low broken wall of rocks, the sun
+gleams on the flying fragments of the wave, again it sinks, and the
+rhythmic motion holds the mind, as an invisible force holds back the
+tide. A faith of expectancy, a sense that something may drift up from
+the unknown, a large belief in the unseen resources of the endless space
+out yonder, soothes the mind with dreamy hope.
+
+"The little rules and little experiences, all the petty ways of narrow
+life, are shut off behind by the ponderous and impassable cliff; as if
+we had dwelt in the dim light of a cave, but coming out at last to look
+at the sun, a great stone had fallen and closed the entrance, so that
+there was no return to the shadow. The impassable precipice shuts off
+our former selves of yesterday, forcing us to look out over the sea
+only, or up to the deeper heaven.
+
+"These breadths draw out the soul; we feel that we have wider thoughts
+than we knew; the soul has been living, as it were, in a nutshell, all
+unaware of its own power, and now suddenly finds freedom in the sun and
+the sky. Straight, as if sawn down from turf to beach, the cliff shuts
+off the human world, for the sea knows no time and no era; you cannot
+tell what century it is from the face of the sea. A Roman trireme
+suddenly rounding the white edge-line of chalk, borne on wind and oar
+from the Isle of Wight towards the gray castle at Pevensey (already old
+in olden days), would not seem strange. What wonder could surprise us
+coming from the wonderful sea?"
+
+[Illustration: _Beachy Head from the Shore._]
+
+[Sidenote: EAST DEAN]
+
+The road from Birling Gap runs up the valley to East Dean and Friston,
+two villages among the Downs. Parson Darby's church at East Dean is
+small and not particularly interesting; but it gave Horsfield, the
+county historian, the opportunity to make one of his infrequent jokes.
+"There are three bells," he writes, "and 'if discord's harmony not
+understood,' truly harmonious ones." Horsfield does not note that one of
+these three bells bore a Latin motto which being translated signifies
+
+
+     Surely no bell beneath the sky
+     Can send forth better sounds than I?
+
+
+The East Dean register contains a curious entry which is quoted in
+Grose's _Olio_, ed. 1796:--"Agnes Payne, the daughter of Edward Payne,
+was buried on the _first day of February_. Johan Payne, the daughter of
+Edward Payne, was buried on the _first day of February_.
+
+"In the death of these two sisters last mentioned is one thing worth
+recording, and diligently to be noted. 'The elder sister, called Agnes,
+being very sicke unto death, _speechless_, and, as was thought, past
+hope of speakinge; after she had lyen twenty-four hours without speach,
+at last upon a suddayne cryed out to her sister to make herself ready
+and to come with her. Her sister Johan being abroad about other
+business, was called for, who being come to her sicke sister,
+demaundinge how she did, she very lowde or earnestly bade her sister
+make ready--she staid for her, and could not go without her. Within half
+an houre after, Johan was taken very sicke, which increasinge all the
+night uppone her, her other sister stille callinge her to come away; in
+the morninge they both departed this wretched world together. O the
+unsearchable wisdom of God! How deepe are his judgments, and his ways
+past fyndinge out!
+
+"Testified by diverse oulde and honest persons yet living; which I
+myself have heard their father, when he was alive, report.
+
+"Arthur Polland, Vicar; Henry Homewood, John Pupp, Churchwardens."
+
+[Sidenote: THE SELWYN MONUMENT]
+
+[Sidenote: FRISTON PLACE]
+
+Friston church is interesting, for it contains one of the most beautiful
+monuments in Sussex, worthy to be remembered with that to the Shurleys
+at Isfield. The family commemorated is the Selwyns, and the monument has
+a very charming dado of six kneeling daughters and three babies laid
+neatly on a tasseled cushion, under the reading desk--a quaint conceit
+impossible to be carried out successfully in these days, but pretty and
+fitting enough then. Of the last of the Selwyns, "Ultimus Selwynorum,"
+who died aged twenty, in 1704, it is said, with that exquisite
+simplicity of exaggeration of which the secret also has been lost, that
+for him "the very marble might weep." Friston Place, the home of the
+Selwyns, has some noble timbers, and a curious old donkey-well in the
+garden.
+
+West Dean, which is three miles to the west, by a bleak and lonely road
+amid hills and valleys, is just a farm yard, with remains of very
+ancient architecture among the barns and ricks. The village, however, is
+more easily reached from Alfriston than Eastbourne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+PEVENSEY AND HURSTMONCEUX
+
+    A well-behaved castle--Rail and romance--Britons, Romans, Saxons and
+    Normans at Pevensey--William the Conqueror--A series of sieges--The
+    first English letter--Andrew Borde, the jester, again--Pevensey
+    gibes--A red brick castle--Hurstmonceux church--The tomb of the
+    Dacres.--Two Hurstmonceux clerics--The de Fiennes and the de
+    Monceux--A spacious home--The ghost--The unfortunate Lord
+    Dacre--Horace Walpole at Hurstmonceux--The trug industry.
+
+
+Pevensey Castle behaves as a castle should: it rises from the plain, the
+only considerable eminence for miles; it has noble grey walls of the
+true romantic hue and thickness; it can be seen from the sea, over which
+it once kept guard; it has a history rich in assailants and defenders.
+There is indeed nothing in its disfavour except the proximity of the
+railway, which has been allowed to pass nearer the ruin than dramatic
+fitness would dictate. Let it, however, be remembered that the railway
+through the St. Pancras Priory at Lewes led to the discovery of the
+coffins of William de Warenne and Gundrada, and also that, in Mr.
+Kipling's phrase, romance, so far from being at enmity with the iron
+horse, "brought up the 9.15."
+
+[Illustration: _Pevensey Castle._]
+
+Pevensey, which is now divided from the channel by marshy fields with
+nothing to break the flatness but Martello towers (thirteen may be
+counted from the walls), was, like Bramber Castle in the west, now also
+an inland stronghold, once washed and surrounded by the sea. The sea
+probably covered all the ground as far inland as Hailsham--Pevensey,
+Horseye, Rickney and the other "eyes" on the level, being then
+islands, as their termination suggests.
+
+There is now no doubt but that Pevensey was the Anderida of the Romans,
+a city on the borders of the great forest of Anderida that covered the
+Weald of Sussex--Andreas Weald as it was called by the Saxons. But
+before the Romans a British stronghold existed here. This, after the
+Romans left, was attacked by the Saxons, who slew every Briton that they
+found therein. The Saxons in their turn being discomfited, the Normans
+built a new castle within the old walls, with Robert de Moreton, half
+brother of the Conqueror, for its lord. Thus the castle as it now stands
+is in its outer walls Roman, in its inner, Norman.
+
+[Sidenote: WILLIAM'S LANDING]
+
+Unlike certain other Sussex fortresses, Pevensey has seen work. Of its
+Roman career we know nothing, except that the inhabitants seem to have
+dropped a large number of coins, many of which have been dug up. The
+Saxons, as we have seen, massacred the Britons at Anderida very
+thoroughly. Later, in 1042, Swane, son of Earl Godwin, swooped on
+Pevensey's port in the Danish manner and carried off a number of ships.
+In 1049 Earl Godwin, and another son, Harold, made a second foray,
+carried off more ships, and fired the town. On September 28, 1066,
+Pevensey saw a more momentous landing, destined to be fatal to this
+marauding Harold; for on that day William, Duke of Normandy, soon to
+become William the Conqueror, alighted from his vessel, accompanied by
+several hundred Frenchmen in black chain armour. A representation of the
+landing is one of the designs in the Bayeux tapestry. The embroiderers
+take no count of William's fall as he stepped ashore, on ground now
+grazed upon by cattle, an accident deemed unlucky until his ready wit
+explained, as he rose with sanded fingers, "See, I have seized the land
+with my hands."
+
+Pevensey's later history included sieges by William Rufus in 1088, when
+Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, supporter of Robert, was the defender; by
+Stephen in 1144, the fortress being held by Maude, who gave in
+eventually to famine; by Simon de Montfort and the Barons in 1265; and
+by the supporters of Richard of York in 1399, when Lady Pelham defended
+it for the Rose of Lancaster. A little later Edmund, Duke of York, was
+imprisoned in it, and was so satisfied with his gaoler that he
+bequeathed him _L_20. Queen Joan of Navarre, wife of Henry IV., was also a
+prisoner here for nine years. In the year before the Armada, Pevensey
+Castle was ordered to be either rebuilt as a fortress or razed to the
+ground; but fortunately neither instruction was carried out.
+
+The present owner of Pevensey Castle is the Duke of Devonshire, who by
+virtue of the possession is entitled to call himself Dominus Aquilae, or
+Lord of the Eagle.
+
+[Sidenote: LETTER-WRITING]
+
+Pevensey has another and gentler claim to notice. Many essayists have
+said pleasant and ingenious things about the art of letter-writing; but
+none of them mentions the part played by Pevensey in the English
+development of that agreeable accomplishment. Yet the earliest specimen
+of English letter-writing that exists was penned in Pevensey Castle. The
+writer was Joan Crownall, Lady Pelham, wife of Sir John Pelham, who, as
+I have said, defended the castle, in her Lord's absence, against the
+Yorkists, and this is the letter, penned (I write in 1903) five hundred
+and four years ago. (It has no postscript.)
+
+
+     My dear Lord,--I recommend me to your high Lordship, with heart and
+     body and all my poor might. And with all this I thank you as my
+     dear Lord, dearest and best beloved of all earthly lords. I say for
+     me, and thank you, my dear Lord, with all this that I said before
+     of [for] your comfortable letter that you sent me from Pontefract,
+     that came to me on Mary Magdalen's day: for by my troth I was never
+     so glad as when I heard by your letter that ye were strong enough
+     with the grace of God for to keep you from the malice of your
+     enemies. And, dear Lord, if it like to your high Lordship that as
+     soon as ye might that I might hear of your gracious speed, which
+     God Almighty continue and increase. And, my dear Lord, if it like
+     you to know _my_ fare, I am here laid by in manner of a siege with
+     the county of Sussex, Surrey, and a great parcel of Kent, so that
+     I may not [go] out nor no victuals get me, but with much hard.
+     Wherefore, my dear, if it like you by the advice of your wise
+     counsel for to set remedy of the salvation of your Castle and
+     withstand the malice of the Shires aforesaid. And also that ye be
+     fully informed of the great malice-workers in these shires which
+     have so despitefully wrought to you, and to your Castle, to your
+     men and to your tenants; for this country have they wasted for a
+     great while.
+
+     "Farewell, my dear Lord! the Holy Trinity keep you from your
+     enemies, and soon send me good tidings of you. Written at Pevensey,
+     in the Castle, on St. Jacob's day last past.
+
+                                           "By your own poor
+                                                     "J. PELHAM."
+     "To my true Lord."
+
+
+[Sidenote: ANDREW BORDE AGAIN]
+
+In the town of Pevensey once lived Andrew Borde (who entered this world
+at Cuckfield): a thorn in the side of municipal dignity. The Dogberryish
+dictum "I am still but a man, although Mayor of Pevensey," remains a
+local joke, and tradition has kept alive the prowess of the Pevensey
+jury which brought a verdict of manslaughter against one who was charged
+with stealing breeches; both jokes of Andrew's. Borde's house, whither,
+it is said, Edward VI. once came on a visit to the jester, still stands.
+The oak room in which Andrew welcomed the youthful king is shown at a
+cost of threepence per head, and you may buy pictorial postcards and
+German wooden toys in the wit's front parlour.
+
+Before leaving Pevensey I must say a word of Westham, the village which
+adjoins it. Westham and Pevensey are practically one, the castle
+intervening. Westham has a vicar whose interest in his office might well
+be imitated by some of the other vicars of the county. His noble church,
+one of the finest in Sussex, with a tower of superb strength and
+dignity, is kept open, and just within is a table on which are a number
+of copies of a little penny history of Westham which he has prepared,
+and for the payment of which he is so eccentric as to trust to the
+stranger's honesty.
+
+The tower, which the vicar tells us is six hundred years old, he asks us
+to admire for its "utter carelessness and scorn of smoothness and
+finish, or any of the tricks of modern buildings." Westham church was
+one of the first that the Conqueror built, and remains of the original
+Norman structure are still serviceable. The vicar suggests that it may
+very possibly have stood a siege. In the jamb of the south door of the
+Norman wall is a sundial, without which, one might say, no church is
+completely perfect. In the tower dwell unmolested a colony of owls, six
+of whom once attended a "reading-in" service and, seated side by side on
+a beam, listened with unwavering attention to the Thirty-Nine Articles.
+They were absent on my visit, but a small starling, swift and elusive as
+a spirit, flitted hither and thither quite happily.
+
+[Illustration: _Westham._]
+
+[Sidenote: ALES CRESSEL]
+
+In the churchyard is the grave of one Ales Cressel (oddest of names),
+and among the epitaphs is this upon a Mr. Henty:--
+
+
+     Learn from this mistic sage to live or die.
+     Well did he love at evening's social hour
+     The Sacred Volume's treasure to apply.
+
+     The remembrance of his excellent character alone reconciles his
+     afflicted widow to her irreparable loss.
+
+
+The church contains a memorial to a young gentleman named Fagg who,
+"having lived to adorn Human Nature by his exemplary manners, was
+untimely snatched away, aged 24."
+
+In the neighbourhood of Westham is a large rambling building known as
+Priesthaus, which, once a monastery, is now a farm. Many curious relics
+of its earlier state have lately been unearthed.
+
+In Pevensey church, which has none of the interest of Westham, a little
+collection of curiosities relating to Pevensey--a constable's staff, old
+title deeds, seals, and so forth--is kept, in a glass case.
+
+[Illustration: _Hurstmonceux Castle._]
+
+[Sidenote: HURSTMONCEUX CASTLE]
+
+If Pevensey is all that a castle ought to be, in shape, colour, position
+and past, Hurstmonceux is the reverse; for it lies low, it has no
+swelling contours, it is of red brick instead of grey stone, and never a
+fight has it seen. But any disappointment we may feel is the fault not
+of Hurstmonceux but of those who named it castle. Were it called
+Hurstmonceux House, or Place, or Manor, or Grange, all would be well. It
+is this use of the word castle (which in Sussex has a connotation
+excluding red brick) that has done Hurstmonceux an injustice, for it is
+a very imposing and satisfactory ruin, quite as interesting
+architecturally as Pevensey, or, indeed, any of the ruins that we have
+seen.
+
+Hurstmonceux Castle stands on the very edge of Pevensey Level, the only
+considerable structure between Pevensey and the main land proper. In the
+intervening miles there are fields and fields, through which the Old
+Haven runs, plaintive plovers above them bemoaning their lot, and brown
+cows tugging at the rich grass. On the first hillock to the right of the
+castle as one fronts the south, rising like an island from this sea of
+pasturage, is Hurstmonceux church, whose shingled spire shoots into the
+sky, a beacon to travellers in the Level. It is a pretty church with an
+exterior of severe simplicity. Between the chancel and the chantry is
+the large tomb covering the remains of Thomas Fiennes, second Lord
+Dacre of Hurstmonceux, who died in 1534, and Sir Thomas Dacre his son,
+surmounted by life-size stone figures, each in full armour, with hands
+proudly raised, and each resting his feet against the Fiennes wolf-dog.
+
+In the churchyard is the grave of Julius Hare, once vicar of
+Hurstmonceux, and the author, with his brother Augustus, of _Guesses at
+Truth_. Carlyle's John Sterling was Julius Hare's first curate here.
+
+[Sidenote: THE OLD SPACIOUSNESS]
+
+Hurstmonceux Castle was once the largest and handsomest of all the
+commoners' houses in the county. Sir Roger de Fiennes, a descendant of
+the John de Fiennes who married Maude, last of the de Monceux, in the
+reign of Edward II., built it in 1440. Though the Manor house of the de
+Monceux, on the site of the present castle, lacked the imposing
+qualities of Roger de Fiennes' stronghold, it was hospitable, spacious,
+and luxurious. Edward the First spent a night there in 1302. One of the
+de Monceux was on the side of de Montfort in the Battle of Lewes, and
+the first of them to settle in England married Edith, daughter of
+William de Warenne and Gundrada, of Lewes Castle.
+
+How thorough and conscientious were the workmen employed by Roger de
+Fiennes, and how sound were their bricks and mortar, may be learned by
+the study of Hurstmonceux Castle to-day. In many parts the walls are
+absolutely uninjured except by tourists. The floors, however, have long
+since returned to nature, who has put forth her energies without stint
+to clothe the old apartments with greenery. Ivy of astonishing vigour
+grows here, populous with jackdaws, and trees and shrubs spring from the
+least likely spots.
+
+The castle in its old completeness was, practically, a little town. From
+east to west its walls measured 206-1/2 feet, from north to south,
+214-1/4; within them on the ground floor were larders, laundries, a
+brewhouse, a bakehouse, cellars, a dairy, offices, a guard room,
+pantries, a distillery, a confectionery room, a chapel, and, beneath, a
+dungeon. Between these were four open courts. Upstairs, round three
+sides of the Green Court, were the Bird Gallery, the Armour Gallery, and
+the Green Gallery, and lords' apartments and ladies' apartments "capable
+of quartering an army," to quote a writer on the subject. On each side
+of the entrance, gained by a drawbridge, was a tower--the Watch Tower
+and the Signal Tower.
+
+In the reign of Elizabeth a survey of Hurstmonceux was taken, which
+tells us that in the park were two hundred deer, "four fair ponds"
+stocked with carp and tench, a "fair warren of conies," a heronry of 150
+nests, and much game. The de Fiennes, or Dacres as they became, had also
+a private fishery in Pevensey Bay, seen from the Watch Tower as a strip
+of blue ribbon.
+
+In addition Hurstmonceux had a ghost, who inhabited the Drummers' Hall,
+a room between the towers over the porter's lodge, and sent forth a
+mysterious tattoo. Sometimes he left his hall, this devilish musician,
+and strode along the battlements drumming and drumming, a terrible
+figure nine feet high. Most people were frightened, but there were those
+who said that the drummer was nothing more nor less than a gardener in
+league with the Pevensey smugglers, whose notes, rattled out on the
+parchment, rolled over the marsh and gave them the needful signal.
+
+[Sidenote: THE UNFORTUNATE LORD DACRE]
+
+Hurstmonceux once had a very real tragedy. The third Lord Dacre, one of
+the young noblemen who took part in the welcoming of Ann of Cleves when
+she landed in England preparatory to her becoming the wife of Henry
+VIII., was so foolish one night in 1541 as to accompany some of his
+roystering companions to the adjacent park of Sir Nicholas Pelham, near
+Hellingly, intent on a deer-stealing jest. There three gamekeepers rose
+up, and a bloody battle ensued in which one John Busbrig bit the dust.
+Pelham was furious and demanded justice, and Lord Dacre, though he had
+taken no part in the fray, was held responsible. Three of his friends
+were hanged at Tyburn, and, in spite of all the influence that was
+brought to bear, he also was executed. The next Dacre of importance
+married the Lady Ann Fitzroy, a natural daughter of Charles II., and was
+made Earl of Sussex. Financial losses compelling him to sell
+Hurstmonceux, a lawyer named George Naylor bought it in 1708, leaving
+it, on his death, to the Right Rev. Francis Hare, Bishop of Chichester.
+It remained in the family as a residence until, in 1777, an architect
+pronounced it unsafe, and the interior was converted into materials for
+the new Hurstmonceux Place in the park to the north-west. Since then
+nature has had her way with it.
+
+[Sidenote: WALPOLE AT HURSTMONCEUX]
+
+Horace Walpole's visit, as described in one of his letters, gives us an
+idea of Hurstmonceux in the middle of the eighteenth century, a little
+before it became derelict:--"The chapel is small, and mean; the Virgin
+and seven long lean saints, ill done, remain in the windows. There have
+been four more, but they seem to have been removed for light; and we
+actually found St. Catherine, and another gentlewoman with a church in
+her hand, exiled into the buttery. There remain two odd cavities, with
+very small wooden screens on each side the altar, which seem to have
+been confessionals. The outside is a mixture of grey brick and stone,
+that has a very venerable appearance. The draw-bridges are romantic to a
+degree; and there is a dungeon, that gives one a delightful idea of
+living in the days of soccage and under such goodly tenures. They showed
+us a dismal chamber which they called _Drummer's_-hall, and suppose that
+Mr. Addison's comedy is descended from it. In the windows of the gallery
+over the cloisters, which leads all round to the apartments, is the
+device of the Fienneses, a wolf holding a baton with a scroll, _Le roy
+le veut_--an unlucky motto, as I shall tell you presently, to the last
+peer of that line. The estate is two thousand a year, and so compact as
+to have but seventeen houses upon it. We walked up a brave old avenue to
+the church, with ships sailing on our left hand the whole way."
+
+[Sidenote: TRUGS]
+
+Hurstmonceux is famous not only for its castle, but for its "trugs," the
+wooden baskets that gardeners carry, which are associated with
+Hurstmonceux as crooks once were with Pyecombe, and the shepherds' vast
+green umbrellas, on cane frames, with Lewes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+HASTINGS
+
+     The ravening sea--Hastings and history--Titus Oates--Sir Cloudesley
+     Shovel--A stalwart Nestor--Edward Capel--An old Sussex harvest
+     custom--A poetical mayor--Picturesque Hastings--Hastings
+     castle--Hollington Rural and Charles Lamb--Fairlight Glen and the
+     Lover's Seat--Bexhill.
+
+
+Brighton, as we have seen, was made by Dr. Russell. It was Dr. Baillie,
+some years later, who discovered the salubrious qualities of Hastings.
+In 1806, when the Duke of Wellington (then Major-General Wellesley) was
+in command of twelve thousand soldiers encamped in the neighbourhood,
+and was himself living at Hastings House, the population of the town was
+less than four thousand; to-day, with St. Leonard's and dependant
+suburbs, Hastings covers several square miles. With the exception of the
+little red and grey region known as Old Hastings, between Castle Hill
+and East Hill, the same charge of a lack of what is interesting can be
+brought against Hastings as against Brighton; but whereas Brighton has
+the Downs to offer, Hastings is backed by country of far less charm.
+Perhaps her greatest merit is her proximity to Winchelsea and Rye.
+
+Hastings, once one of the proudest of the Cinque Ports, has no longer
+even a harbour, its pleasure yachts, which carry excursionists on brief
+Channel voyages, having to be beached just like rowing boats. The
+ravages of the sea, which have so transformed the coast line of Sussex,
+have completely changed this town; and from a stately seaport she has
+become a democratic watering place. Beneath the waves lie the remains of
+an old Priory and possibly of not a few churches.
+
+Hastings has been very nigh to history more than once, but she has
+escaped the actual making of it. Even the great battle that takes its
+name from the town was fought seven miles away, while the Duke of
+Normandy, as we have seen, landed as far distant as Pevensey, ten miles
+in the west. But he used Hastings as a victualling centre. Again and
+again, in its time, Hastings has been threatened with invasion by the
+French, who did actually land in 1138 and burned the town. And one
+Sunday morning in 1643, Colonel Morley of Glynde, the Parliamentarian,
+marched in with his men and confiscated all arms. But considering its
+warlike mien, Hastings has done little.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ADMIRAL'S MOTHER]
+
+Nor can the seaport claim any very illustrious son. Titus Oates, it is
+true, was curate of All Saints church in 1674, his father being vicar;
+and among the inhabitants of the old town was the mother of Sir
+Cloudesley Shovel, the admiral. A charming account of a visit paid to
+her by her son is given in De la Prynne's diary: "I heard a gentleman
+say, who was in the ship with him about six years ago, that as they were
+sailing over against the town, of Hastings, in Sussex, Sir Cloudesley
+called out, 'Pilot, put near; I have a little business on shore.' So he
+put near, and Sir Cloudesley and this gentleman went to shore in a small
+boat, and having walked about half a mile, Sir Cloudesley came to a
+little house [in All Saints Street], 'Come,' says he, 'my business is
+here; I came on purpose to see the good woman of this house.' Upon this
+they knocked at the door, and out came a poor old woman, upon which Sir
+Cloudesley kissed her, and then falling down on his knees, begged her
+blessing, and calling her mother (who had removed out of Yorkshire
+hither). He was mightily kind to her, and she to him, and after that he
+had made his visit, he left her ten guineas, and took his leave with
+tears in his eyes and departed to his ship."
+
+[Sidenote: THE CHURCH MILITANT]
+
+Hastings had a famous rector at the beginning of the last century, in
+the person of the Rev. Webster Whistler, who combined with the eastern
+benefice that of Newtimber, near Hurstpierpoint, and managed to serve
+both to a great age. He lived to be eighty-four and died full of vigour
+in 1831. In 1817, following upon a quarrel with the squire, the
+Newtimber living was put up for auction in London. Mr. Whistler decided
+to be present, but anonymous. The auctioneer mentioned in his
+introduction the various charms of the benefice, ending with the
+superlative advantage that it was held by an aged and infirm clergyman
+with one foot in the grave. At this point the proceedings were
+interrupted by a large and powerful figure in clerical costume springing
+on the table and crying out to the company: "Now, gentlemen, do I look
+like a man tottering on the brink of the grave? My left leg gives me no
+sign of weakness, and as for the other, Mr. Auctioneer, if you repeat
+your remarks you will find it very much at your service." The living
+found no purchaser.
+
+Mr. Whistler had a Chinese indifference to the necessary end of all
+things, which prompted him to use an aged yew tree in his garden, that
+had long given him shade but must now be felled, as material for his
+coffin. This coffin he placed at the foot of his bed as a chest for
+clothes until its proper purpose was fulfilled.
+
+Hastings was also the home of Edward Capel, a Shakespeare-editor of the
+eighteenth century. Capel, who is said to have copied out in his own
+hand the entire works of the poet no fewer than ten times, was the
+designer of his own house, which seems to have been a miracle of
+discomfort. He was an eccentric of the most determined character, so
+much so that he gradually lost all friends. According to Horsfield, "The
+spirit of nicety and refinement prevailed in it [his house] so much
+during his lifetime, that when a friend (a baronet) called upon him on
+a tour, he was desired to leave his cane in the vestibule, lest he
+should either dirt the floor with it, or soil the carpet."
+
+[Sidenote: HARVEST HOME]
+
+One does not think naturally of old Sussex customs in connection with
+this town, so thoroughly urban as it now is and so largely populated by
+visitors, but I find in the Sussex Archaeological Collections the
+following interesting account, by a Hastings alderman, of an old harvest
+ceremony in the neighbourhood:--"At the head of the table one of the men
+occupied the position of chairman; in front of him stood a pail--clean
+as wooden staves and iron hoops could be made by human labour. At his
+right sat four or five men who led the singing, grave as judges were
+they; indeed, the appearance of the whole assembly was one of the
+greatest solemnity, except for a moment or two when some unlucky wight
+failed to 'turn the cup over,' and was compelled to undergo the penalty
+in that case made and provided. This done, all went on as solemnly as
+before.
+
+"The ceremony, if I may call it so, was this: The leader, or chairman,
+standing behind the pail with a tall horn cup in his hand, filled it
+with beer from the pail. The man next to him on the left stood up, and
+holding a hat with both hands by the brim, crown upwards, received the
+cup from the chairman, on the crown of the hat, not touching it with
+either hand. He then lifted the cup to his lips by raising the hat, and
+slowly drank off the contents. As soon as he began to drink, the chorus
+struck up this chant:
+
+
+     I've bin to Plymouth and I've bin to Dover.
+     I have bin rambling, boys, all the wurld over--
+         Over and over and over and over,
+     Drink up yur liquor and turn yur cup over;
+         Over and over and over and over,
+     The liquor's drink'd up and the cup is turned over.
+
+
+"The man drinking was expected to time his draught so as to empty his
+cup at the end of the fourth line of the chant; he was then to return
+the hat to the perpendicular, still holding the hat by the brim, then to
+throw the cup into the air, and reversing the hat, to catch the cup in
+it as it fell. If he failed to perform this operation, the fellow
+workmen who were closely watching him, made an important alteration in
+the last line of their chant, which in that case ran thus:
+
+
+     The liquor's drink'd up and the cup _aint_ turned over.
+
+
+"The cup was then refilled and the unfortunate drinker was compelled to
+go through the same ceremony again. Every one at the table took the cup
+and 'turned it over' in succession, the chief shepherd keeping the pail
+constantly supplied with beer. The parlour guests were of course invited
+to turn the cup over with the guests of the kitchen, and went through
+the ordeal with more or less of success. For my own part, I confess that
+I failed to catch the cup in the hat at the first trial and had to try
+again; the chairman, however, mercifully gave me only a small quantity
+of beer the second time."
+
+[Sidenote: THE MAYOR'S PRETTY LAMENT]
+
+The civic life of Hastings would seem to encourage literature, for I
+find also in one of the Archaeological Society's volumes, the following
+pretty lines by John Collier--Mayor of Hastings in 1719, 22, 30, 37, and
+41--on his little boy's death:
+
+
+     Ah, my poor son! Ah my tender child,
+     My unblown flower and now appearing sweet,
+     If yet your gentle soul flys in the air
+     And is not fixt in doom perpetual,
+     Hover about me with your airy wings
+     And hear your Father's lamentation.
+
+
+Hastings has two advantages over both Brighton and Eastbourne: it can
+produce a genuine piece of antiquity, and seen from the sea it has a
+picturesque quality that neither of those towns possesses. Indeed, under
+certain conditions of light, Hastings is magnificent, with the craggy
+Castle Hill in its midst surmounted by its imposing ruin. The smoke of
+the town, rising and spreading, shrouds the modernity of the sea front,
+and the castle on its commanding height seems to be brooding over the
+shores of old romance. Brighton has no such effect as this.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIRST TOURNAMENT]
+
+Of the Castle little is known. It was probably built on the site of
+Roman fortifications, by the Comte d'Eu, who came over with the
+Conqueror. The first tournament in England is said to have been held
+there, with Adela, daughter of the Conqueror, as Queen of Beauty. After
+the castle had ceased to be of any use as a stronghold it was still
+maintained as a religious house. It is now a pleasure resort. The
+ordinary visitor to Hastings is, however, more interested by the caves
+in the hill below, originally made by diggers of sand and afterwards
+used by smugglers.
+
+Before branching out from Hastings into the country proper I might
+mention two neighbouring points of pilgrimage. One is Hollington Rural
+church, on the hill behind the town, whither sooner or later every one
+walks. It is a small church in the midst of a crowded burial ground, and
+it is difficult to understand its attraction unless by the poverty of
+other objectives. I should not mention it, but that it is probably the
+church to which Charles Lamb, bored by Hastings itself, wended his way
+one day in 1825. He describes it, in terms more fitting to, say,
+Lullington church near Alfriston, or St. Olave's at Chichester, in no
+fewer than three of his letters. This is the best passage, revelling in
+a kind of inverted exaggeration, as written to John Bates Dibdin, at
+Hastings, in 1826:--"Let me hear that you have clamber'd up to Lover's
+Seat; it is as fine in that neighbourhood as Juan Fernandez, as lonely
+too, when the Fishing boats are not out; I have sat for hours, staring
+upon the shipless sea. The salt sea is never so grand as when it is left
+to itself. One cock-boat spoils it. A sea mew or two improves it. And go
+to the little church, which is a very protestant Loretto, and seems
+dropt by some angel for the use of a hermit, who was at once parishioner
+and a whole parish. It is not too big. Go in the night, bring it away in
+your portmanteau, and I will plant it in my garden. It must have been
+erected in the very infancy of British Christianity, for the two or
+three first converts; yet hath it all the appertances of a church of the
+first magnitude, its pulpit, its pews, its baptismal font; a cathedral
+in a nutshell. Seven people would crowd it like a Caledonian Chapel. The
+minister that divides the word there, must give lumping pennyworths. It
+is built to the text of two or three assembled in my name. It reminds me
+of the grain of mustard seed. If the glebe land is proportionate, it may
+yield two potatoes. Tythes out of it could be no more split than a hair.
+Its First fruits must be its Last, for 'twould never produce a couple.
+It is truly the strait and narrow way, and few there be (of London
+visitants) that find it. The still small voice is surely to be found
+there, if any where. A sounding board is merely there for ceremony. It
+is secure from earthquakes, not more from sanctity than size, for
+'twould feel a mountain thrown upon it no more than a taper-worm would.
+Go and see, but not without your spectacles."
+
+[Sidenote: THE LOVER'S SEAT]
+
+The Lover's Seat, mentioned in the first sentence of the above passage,
+is at Fairlight, about two miles east of Hastings. The seat is very
+prettily situated high in a ledge in Fairlight Glen. Horsfield shall
+tell the story that gave the spot its fascinating name:--
+
+"A beautiful girl at Rye gained the affections of Captain ----, then in
+command of a cutter in that station. Her parents disapproved the
+connection and removed her to a farm house near the Lover's Seat, called
+the Warren-house. Hence she contrived to absent herself night after
+night, when she sought this spot, and by means of a light made known her
+presence to her lover, who was cruising off in expectation of her
+arrival. The difficulties thus thrown in their way increased the ardour
+of their attachment and marriage was determined upon at all hazards.
+Hollington Church was and is the place most sought for on these
+occasions in this part of the country; it has a romantic air about it
+which is doubtless peculiarly impressive. There are, too, some other
+reasons why so many matches are solemnized here; and all combined to
+make this the place selected by this pair. It was expected that the
+lady's flight would be discovered and her object suspected; but in order
+to prevent a rescue, the cutter's crew positively volunteered and acted
+as guards on the narrow paths leading through the woods to the church.
+However, the marriage ceremony was completed before any unwelcome
+visitors arrived, and reconciliation soon followed."
+
+[Sidenote: BEXHILL]
+
+Bexhill has now become so exceedingly accessible by conveyance from
+Hastings that it might perhaps be mentioned here as a contiguous place
+of interest; but of Bexhill, till lately a village, or Bexhill-on-Sea,
+watering place, with everything handsome about it, there is little to
+say. Both the tide of the Channel and of popularity seem to be receding.
+Inland there is some pretty country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+BATTLE ABBEY
+
+     Le Souvenir Normande--The Battle of Hastings--Normans and Saxons on
+     the eve--Taillefer--The battle cries--The death of Harold--Harold's
+     body: three stories--The field of blood--Building the Abbey--The
+     Abbot's privileges--Royal visitors--A great feast--The suppression
+     of the Abbey--Present-day Battle--An incredible
+     butler--Ashburnham--The last forge--Ninfield--Crowhurst.
+
+
+The principal excursion from Hastings is of course to Battle, whither a
+company of discreetly satisfied Normans--Le Souvenir Normande--recently
+travelled, to view with tactfully chastened enthusiasm the scene of the
+triumph of 1066; to erect a memorial; and to perplex the old ladies of
+Battle who provide tea. Except on one day of the week visitors to Battle
+must content themselves with tea (of which there is no stint) and a view
+of the gateway, for the rule of showing the Abbey only on Tuesdays is
+strictly enforced by the American gentleman who now resides on this
+historic site. But the gateway could hardly be finer.
+
+[Sidenote: BATTLE CRIES]
+
+The battle-field was half a mile south of the Abbey, on Telham hill,
+where in Harold's day was a hoary apple tree. We have seen William
+landing at Pevensey on September 28, 1066: thence he marched to Hastings
+"to steal food," and thence, after a delay of a fortnight (to some
+extent spent in fortifying Hastings, and also in burning his boats), he
+marched to Telham hill. That was on October 13. On the same day Harold
+reached the neighbourhood, with his horde of soldiers and armed
+rustics, and both armies encamped that night only a mile apart, waiting
+for the light to begin the fray. The Saxons were confident and riotous;
+the Normans hopeful and grave. According to Wace, "all night the Saxons
+might be seen carousing, gambolling, and dancing and singing: _bublie_
+they cried, and _wassail_, and _laticome_ and _drinkheil_ and
+_drink-to-me_!"
+
+[Illustration: _Battle Abbey, the Gateway._]
+
+At daybreak in the Norman camp Bishop Odo celebrated High Mass, and
+immediately after was hurried into his armour to join the fight. As the
+Duke was arming an incident occurred but for which Battle Abbey might
+never have been built. His suit of mail was offered him wrong side out.
+The superstitious Normans standing by looked sideways at each other with
+sinking misgiving. They deemed it a bad omen. But William's face
+betrayed no fear. "If we win," he said, "and God send we may, I will
+found an Abbey here for the salvation of the souls of all who fall in
+the engagement." Before quitting his tent, he was careful that those
+relics on which Harold had sworn never to oppose his efforts against
+England's throne should be hung around his neck.
+
+[Sidenote: TAILLEFER]
+
+So the two armies were ready--the mounted Normans, with their conical
+helmets gleaming in the hazy sunlight, with kite-shaped shields, huge
+spears and swords; the English, all on foot, with heavy axes and clubs.
+But theirs was a defensive part; the Normans had to begin. It fell to
+the lot of a wild troubadour named Taillefer to open the fight. He
+galloped from the Norman lines at full speed, singing a song of heroes;
+then checked his steed and tossed his lance thrice in the air, thrice
+catching it by the point. The opposing lines silently wondered. Then he
+flung it at a luckless Saxon with all the energy of a madman, spitting
+him as a skewer spits a lark. Taillefer had now only his sword left.
+This also he threw thrice into the air, and then seizing it with the
+grip of death he rode straight at the Saxon troops, dealing blows from
+left to right, and so was lost to view.
+
+Thus the Battle of Hastings began. "On them in God's name," cried
+William, "and chastise these English for their misdeeds." "Dieu aide,"
+his men screamed, spurring to the attack. "Out, Out!" barked the
+English, "Holy Cross! God Almighty!" The carnage was terrific. It seemed
+for long that the English were prevailing; and they would, in all
+likelihood, have prevailed in the end had they kept their position. But
+William feigned a retreat, and the English crossed their vallum in
+pursuit. The Normans at once turned their horses and pursued and
+butchered the unprepared enemy singly in the open country. A complete
+rout followed. The false step was decisive.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF HAROLD]
+
+Not till night, however, did Harold fall. He upheld his standard to the
+last, hedged about by a valiant bodyguard who resisted the Normans till
+every sign of life was battered out of them. The story of the
+vertically-discharged arrows is a myth. An eye-witness thus described
+Harold's death: "An armed man," said he, "came in the throng of the
+battle and struck him on the ventaille of the helmet and beat him to the
+ground; and as he sought to recover himself a knight beat him down
+again, striking him on the thick of the thigh down to the bone." So died
+Harold, on the exact site of the high altar of the Abbey, and so passed
+away the Saxon kingdom.
+
+That night, William, who was unharmed, though three horses were killed
+under him, had his tent set up in the midst of the dead, and there he
+ate and drank. In the morning the Norman corpses were picked out and
+buried with due rites; the Saxons were left to rot. According to the
+_Carmen_ William I. had Harold's body wrapped in purple linen and
+carried to Hastings, where it was buried on the cliff beneath a stone
+inscribed with the words: "By the order of the Duke, you rest here, King
+Harold, as the guardian of the shore and the sea." Mr. Lower was
+convinced of the truth of that story; but William of Malmesbury says
+that William sent Harold's body to his mother the Countess Gytha, who
+buried it at Waltham, while a third account shows us Editha of the Swan
+Neck, Harold's wife, wandering through the blood-stained grass, among
+the fallen English, until she found the body of her husband, which she
+craved leave to carry away. William, this version adds, could not deny
+her.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FIELD OF BLOOD]
+
+Fuller writes in the _Worthies_, concerning the wonders of
+Sussex:--"Expect not here I should insert what _William_ of _Newbury_
+writeth (to be recounted rather amongst the _Untruths_ than _Wonders_);
+viz. 'That in this County, not far from Battail-Abby, in the Place
+where so great a slaughter of the Englishmen was made, after any shower,
+presently sweateth forth very fresh blood out of the Earth, as if the
+evidence thereof did plainly declare the voice of Bloud there shed, and
+crieth still from the Earth unto the Lord.' This is as true, as that in
+_white_ chalky Countries (about Baldock in Hertfordshire) after rain run
+rivolets of _Milk_; Neither being anything else than the Water
+discoloured, according to the _Complexion_ of the Earth thereabouts."
+
+[Illustration: _Mount Street, Battle._]
+
+The Conqueror was true to his vow, and the Abbey of St. Martin was
+quickly begun. At first there was difficulty about the stone, which was
+brought all the way from Caen quarries, until, according to an old
+writer, a pious matron dreamed that stone in large quantities was to be
+found near at hand. Her vision leading to the discovery of a
+neighbouring quarry, the work proceeded henceforward with exceeding
+rapidity.
+
+[Sidenote: ST. MARTIN'S ABBEY]
+
+Although the first Abbot was appointed in 1076, William the Conqueror
+did not live to see the Abbey finished. Sixty monks of the Order of St.
+Benedict came to Battle from the Abbey of Marmontier in Normandy, to
+form its nucleus. It was left to William Rufus to preside over the
+consecration of Battle, which was not until February, 1095, when the
+ceremony was performed amid much pomp. William presented to the Abbey
+his father's coronation robe and the sword he had wielded in the battle.
+Several wealthy manors were attached and the country round was exempted
+from tax; while the Abbots were made superior to episcopal control, and
+were endowed with the right to sit in Parliament and a London house to
+live in during the session. Indeed nothing was left undone that could
+minister to the pride and power of the new house of God.
+
+The Abbey of St. Martin was quadrangular, standing in the midst of a
+circle nine miles round. Within this were vineyards, stew ponds and rich
+land. Just without was a small street of artisans' dwellings, where were
+manufactured all things requisite for the monks' material well-being.
+The church was the largest in the country, larger even than Canterbury.
+It was also a sanctuary, any sentenced criminal who succeeded in
+sheltering therein receiving absolution from the Abbot. The high altar,
+as I have said, was erected precisely on the spot where Harold fell: a
+spot on which one may now stand and think of the past.
+
+Battle Abbey was more than once visited by kings. In 1200 John was
+there, shaking like a quicksand. He brought a piece of our Lord's
+sepulchre, which had been wrested from Palestine by Richard the Lion
+Heart, and laid it with tremulous hands on the altar, hoping that the
+magnificence of the gift might close Heaven's eyes towards sins of his
+own. In 1212, he was at Battle Abbey again, and for the last time in
+1213, seeking, maybe, to find in these silent cloisters some
+forgetfulness of the mutterings of hate and scorn that everywhere
+followed him.
+
+[Sidenote: KINGS AT BATTLE]
+
+Just before the Battle of Lewes, Henry III. galloped up, attended by a
+body-guard of overbearing horsemen, and levied large sums of money to
+assist him in the struggle. After the battle he returned, a weary
+refugee, but still rapacious.
+
+These visits were not welcome. It was different when Edward II. slept
+there on the night of August 28th, 1324. Alan de Ketbury, the Abbot, was
+bent on showing loyalty at all cost, while the neighbouring lords and
+squires were hardly less eager. The Abbot's contribution to the kitchen
+included twenty score and four loaves of bread, two swans, two rabbits,
+three fessantes, and a dozen capons; William de Echingham sent three
+peacocks, twelve bream, six muttons, and other delicacies; and Robert
+Acheland four rabbits, six swans, and three herons.
+
+In 1331, Abbot Hamo and his monks kept at bay a body of French
+marauders, who had landed at Rye, until the country gentlemen could
+assemble and repulse them utterly.
+
+Then followed two peaceful centuries; but afterwards came disaster, for,
+in 1558, Thomas Cromwell sent down two commissioners to examine into the
+state of the Abbey and report thereon to the zealous Defender of the
+Faith. The Commissioners found nineteen books in the library, and
+rumours of monkish debauchery without the walls. "So beggary a house,"
+wrote one of the officers, "I never see." Battle Abbey was therefore
+suppressed and presented to Sir Anthony Browne, upon whom, as we saw in
+the first chapter, the "Curse of Cowdray" was pronounced by the last
+departing monk.
+
+To catalogue the present features of Battle Abbey is to vulgarise it.
+One comes away with confused memories of grey walls embraced by white
+clematis and red rose; gloomy underground caverns with double rows of
+arches, where the Brothers might not speak; benignant cedars blessing
+the turf with extended hands; fragrant limes waving their delicate
+leaves; an old rose garden with fantastic beds; a long yew walk where
+the Brothers might meditatively pace--turning, perhaps, an epigram,
+regretting, perhaps, the world. Nothing now remains of the Refectory,
+where, of old, forty monks fed like one, except the walls. It once had a
+noble roof of Irish oak, but that was taken to Cowdray and perished in
+the fire there, together with the Abbey roll. One of the Abbey's first
+charms is the appropriateness of its gardens; they too are old. In the
+cloisters, for instance, there are wonderful box borders.
+
+[Illustration: _Battle Abbey. The Refectory._]
+
+[Sidenote: TURNER'S PICTURE]
+
+Turner painted "Battle Abbey: the spot where Harold fell," with a
+greyhound pressing hard upon a hare in the foreground, and a Scotch fir
+Italianated into a golden bough.
+
+The town of Battle has little interest. In the church is a brass to
+Thomas Alfraye and his wife Elizabeth--Thomas Alfraye "whose soul"
+according to his epitaph,
+
+
+     In active strength did passe
+     As nere was found his peere.
+
+
+One would like to know more of this Samson. The tomb of Sir Anthony
+Browne is also here; but it is not so imposing as that of his son, the
+first Viscount Montagu, which we saw at Easebourne. In the churchyard is
+the grave of Isaac Ingall, the oldest butler on record, who died at the
+age of one hundred and twenty, after acting as butler at the Abbey for
+ninety-five years.
+
+From Battle one may reach easily Normanhurst, the seat of the Brasseys,
+and Ashburnham Park, just to the north of it, a superb undulating
+domain, with lakes, an imposing mansion, an old church, brake fern,
+magnificent trees and a herd of deer, all within its confines. Of the
+church, however, I can say nothing, for I was there on a very hot day,
+the door was locked, and the key was at the vicarage, ten minutes'
+distant, at the top of a hill. Churches that are thus controlled must be
+neglected.
+
+[Sidenote: ASHBURNHAM]
+
+Ashburnham Place once contained some of the finest books in England and
+is still famous for its relics of Charles I.; but strangers may not see
+them. The best Sussex iron was smelted at Ashburnham Furnace, north of
+the park, near Penhurst. Ashburnham Forge was the last to remain at work
+in the county; its last surviving labourer of the neighbourhood died in
+1883. He remembered the extinguishing of the fire in 1813 (or 1811), the
+casting of fire-backs being the final task. Penhurst, by the way, is one
+of the most curiously remote villages in east Sussex, with the oddest
+little church.
+
+I walked to Ashburnham from Ninfield, a clean breezy village on the hill
+overlooking Pevensey Bay, with a locked church, and iron stocks by the
+side of the road. It is stated somewhere that at "that corner of Crouch
+Lane that leads to Lunford Cross, and so to Bexhill and Hastings," was
+buried a suicide in 1675. At how many cross roads in Sussex and
+elsewhere does one stand over such graves?
+
+[Sidenote: CROWHURST]
+
+One may return to Hastings by way of Catsfield, which has little
+interest, and Crowhurst, famous for the remains of a beautiful manor
+house and a yew tree supposed to be the oldest in Sussex. It is curious
+that Crowhurst in Surrey is also known for a great yew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+WINCHELSEA AND RYE
+
+     Medieval Sussex--The suddenness of Rye--The approach by
+     night--Cities of the plain--Old Winchelsea--The freakish sea--New
+     Winchelsea--The eternal French problem--Modern Winchelsea--The
+     Alard tombs--Denis Duval and the Westons--John Wesley--Old
+     Rye--John Fletcher--The Jeakes'--An unknown poet--Rye church--The
+     eight bells--Rye's streets--Rye ancient and modern--A Rye
+     ceramist--Pett--Icklesham's accounts--A complacent epitaph--Iden
+     and Playden--Udimore's church--Brede Place--The Oxenbridges--Dean
+     Swift as a baby.
+
+
+In the opinion of many good judges Sussex has nothing to offer so
+fascinating as Winchelsea and Rye; and in certain reposeful moods, when
+the past seems to be more than the present or future, I can agree with
+them. We have seen many ancient towns in our progress through the
+county--Chichester around her cathedral spire, Arundel beneath her grey
+castle, Lewes among her hills--but all have modern blood in their veins.
+Winchelsea and Rye seem wholly of the past. Nothing can modernise them.
+
+Rye approached from the east is the suddenest thing in the world. The
+traveller leaves Ashford, in a South Eastern train, amid all the
+circumstances of ordinary travel; he passes through the ordinary scenery
+of Kent; the porters call Rye, and in a moment he is in the middle ages.
+
+Rye is only a few yards from its station: Winchelsea, on the other hand,
+is a mile from the line, and one has time on the road to understand
+one's surroundings. It is important that the traveller who wishes to
+experience the right medieval thrill should come to Winchelsea either at
+dusk or at night. To make acquaintance with any new town by night is to
+double one's pleasure; for there is a first joy in the curious half-seen
+strangeness of the streets and houses, and a further joy in correcting
+by the morrow's light the distorted impressions gathered in the dark.
+
+[Illustration: _The Landgate, Rye._]
+
+[Sidenote: APPROACH AT DUSK]
+
+To come for the first time upon Winchelsea at dusk, whether from the
+station or from Rye, is to receive an impression almost if not quite
+unique in England; since there is no other town throned like this upon a
+green hill, to be gained only through massive gateways. From the station
+one would enter at the Pipewell Gate; from Rye, by the Strand Gate. The
+Strand approach is perhaps a shade finer and more romantically unreal.
+
+[Sidenote: THE FREAKISH SEA]
+
+Winchelsea and Rye are remarkable in being not only perched each upon a
+solitary hillock in a vast level or marsh, but in being hillocks in
+themselves. In the case of Winchelsea there are trees and green spaces
+to boot, but Rye and its hillock are one; every inch is given over to
+red brick and grey stone. They are true cities of the plain. Between
+them are three miles of flat meadow, where, among thousands of sheep,
+stands the grey rotundity of Camber Castle. All this land is _polder_,
+as the Dutch call it, yet not reclaimed from the sea by any feat of
+engineering, as about the Helder, but presented by Neptune as a free and
+not too welcome gift to these ancient boroughs--possibly to equalise his
+theft of acres of good park at Selsey. Once a Cinque Port of the first
+magnitude, Winchelsea is now an inland resort of the antiquary and the
+artist. Where fishermen once dropped their nets, shepherds now watch
+their sheep; where the marauding French were wont to rush in with sword
+and torch, tourists now toil with camera and guide-book.
+
+The light above the sheep levels changes continually: at one hour Rye
+seems but a stone's throw from Winchelsea; at another she is miles
+distant; at a third she looms twice her size through the haze, and
+Camber is seen as a fortress of old romance.
+
+Rye stands where it always stood: but the original Winchelsea is no
+more. It was built two miles south-south-east of Rye, on a spot since
+covered by the sea but now again dry land. At Old Winchelsea William the
+Conqueror landed in 1067 after a visit to Normandy; in 1138 Henry II.
+landed there, while the French landed often, sometimes disastrously and
+sometimes not. In those days Winchelsea had seven hundred householders
+and fifty inns. In 1250, however, began her downfall. Holinshed
+writes:--"On the first day of October (1250), the moon, upon her change,
+appearing exceeding red and swelled, began to show tokens of the great
+tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mightie, both by
+land and sea, that the like had not been lightlie knowne, and seldome,
+or rather never heard of by men then alive. The sea forced contrarie to
+his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yeelding such a rooring
+that the same was heard (not without great woonder) a farre distance
+from the shore. Moreover, the same sea appeared in the darke of the
+night to burne, as it had been on fire, and the waves to strive and
+fight togither after a marvellous sort, so that the mariners could not
+devise how to save their ships where they laie at anchor, by no cunning
+or shift which they could devise. At Hert-burne three tall-ships
+perished without recoverie, besides other smaller vessels. At
+Winchelsey, besides other hurte that was doone, in bridges, milles,
+breakes, and banks, there were 300 houses and some churches drowned with
+the high rising of the water course."
+
+[Sidenote: WINCHELSEA'S VICISSITUDES]
+
+The Winchelsea people, however, did not abandon their town. In 1264
+Henry III. was there on his way to the Battle of Lewes, and later,
+Eleanor, wife of Henry's conqueror, de Montfort, was there too, and
+encouraged by her kindness to them the Winchelsea men took to active sea
+piracy, which de Montfort encouraged. In 1266, however, Prince Edward,
+who disliked piracy, descended upon the town and chastised it bloodily;
+while on February 4, 1287, a greater punishment came, for during another
+storm the town was practically drowned, all the flat land between Pett
+and Hythe being inundated. New Winchelsea, the Winchelsea of to-day, was
+forthwith begun under royal patronage on a rock near Icklesham, the
+north and east sides of which were washed by the sea. A castle was set
+there, and gates, of which three still stand--Pipewell, Strand and
+New--rose from the earth. The Grey Friars monastery and other religious
+houses were reproduced as at Old Winchelsea, and a prosperous town
+quickly existed.
+
+New Winchelsea was soon busy. In 1350 a battle between the English and
+Spanish fleets was waged off the town, an exciting spectacle for the
+Court, who watched from the high ground. Edward III., the English king,
+when victory was his, rode to Etchingham for the night. In 1359, 3,000
+Frenchmen entered Winchelsea and set fire to it; while in 1360 the
+Cinque Ports navy sailed from Winchelsea and burned Luce. Such were the
+reprisals of those days. In 1376 the French came again and were repulsed
+by the Abbot of Battle, but in 1378 the Abbot had to run. In 1448 the
+French came for the last time, the sea having become very shallow; and a
+little later the sea receded altogether, Henry VIII. suppressed the
+religious houses, and Winchelsea's heyday was over.
+
+She is now a quiet, aloof settlement of pleasant houses and gardens,
+prosperous and idle. Rye might be called a city of trade, Winchelsea of
+repose. She spreads her hands to the sun and is content.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ALARD TOMBS]
+
+Winchelsea's church stands, as a church should, in the midst of its
+green acre, fully visible from every side--the very antipodes of Rye.
+Large as it now is, it was once far larger, for only the chancel and
+side aisles remain. The glory of the church is the canopied tomb of
+Gervase Alard, Admiral of the Cinque Ports, and that of his grandson
+Stephen Alard, also Admiral, both curiously carved with grotesque heads.
+The roof beams of the church, timber from wrecked or broken ships, are
+of an integrity so thorough that a village carpenter who recently
+climbed up to test them blunted all his tools in the enterprise.
+
+[Illustration: _Sedilia and Tombs of Gervase and Stephen Alard,
+Winchelsea._]
+
+[Sidenote: THE WESTONS]
+
+All that remains of the Grey Friars monastery may now be seen (on
+Mondays only) in the estate called The Friars: the shell of the chapel's
+choir, prettily covered with ivy. Here once lived, in the odour of
+perfect respectability, the brothers Weston, who, country gentlemen of
+quiet habit at home, for several years ravaged the coach roads elsewhere
+as highwaymen, and were eventually hanged at Tyburn. Their place in
+literature is, of course, _Denis Duval_, which Thackeray wrote in a
+house on the north of the churchyard, and which is all of Winchelsea and
+Rye compact, as the author's letters to Mr. Greenwood, editor of
+_Cornhill_, detailing the plot (in the person of Denis himself) go to
+show. Thus:--
+
+
+     "I was born in the year 1764, at Winchelsea, where my father was a
+     grocer and clerk of the church. Everybody in the place was a good
+     deal connected with smuggling.
+
+     "There used to come to our house a very noble French gentleman,
+     called the COUNT DE LA MOTTE, and with him a German, the BARON DE
+     LUeTTERLOH. My father used to take packages to Ostend and Calais for
+     these two gentlemen, and perhaps I went to Paris once, and saw the
+     French Queen.
+
+     "The squire of our town was SQUIRE WESTON of the Priory, who, with
+     his brother, kept one of the genteelest houses in the country. He
+     was churchwarden of our church, and much respected. Yes, but if you
+     read the _Annual Register_ of 1781, you will find that on the 13th
+     July the sheriffs attended at the TOWER OF LONDON to receive
+     custody of a De la Motte, a prisoner charged with high treason. The
+     fact is, this Alsatian nobleman being in difficulties in his own
+     country (where he had commanded the Regiment Soubise), came to
+     London, and under pretence of sending prints to France and Ostend,
+     supplied the French Ministers with accounts of the movements of the
+     English fleets and troops. His go-between was Luetterloh, a
+     Brunswicker, who had been a crimping-agent, then a servant, who was
+     a spy of France and Mr. Franklin, and who turned king's evidence on
+     La Motte, and hanged him.
+
+     "This Luetterloh, who had been a crimping-agent for German troops
+     during the American war, then a servant in London during the Gordon
+     riots, then an agent for a spy, then a spy over a spy, I suspect to
+     have been a consummate scoundrel, and doubly odious from speaking
+     English with a German accent.
+
+     "What if he wanted to marry THAT CHARMING GIRL, who lived with Mr.
+     Weston at Winchelsea? Ha! I see a mystery here.
+
+     "What if this scoundrel, going to receive his pay from the English
+     Admiral, with whom he was in communication at Portsmouth, happened
+     to go on board the _Royal George_ the day she went down?
+
+     "As for George and Joseph Weston, of the Priory, I am sorry to say
+     they were rascals too. They were tried for robbing the Bristol mail
+     in 1780; and being acquitted for want of evidence, were tried
+     immediately after on another indictment for forgery--Joseph was
+     acquitted, but George was capitally convicted. But this did not
+     help poor Joseph. Before their trials, they and some others broke
+     out of Newgate, and Joseph fired at, and wounded, a porter who
+     tried to stop him, on Snow Hill. For this he was tried and found
+     guilty on the Black Act, and hung along with his brother.
+
+     "Now, if I was an innocent participator in De la Motte's treasons,
+     and the Westons' forgeries and robberies, what pretty scrapes I
+     must have been in.
+
+     "I married the young woman, whom the brutal Luetterloh would have
+     had for himself, and lived happy ever after."
+
+
+And again:--
+
+[Sidenote: DENIS DUVAL'S BOYHOOD]
+
+
+     "My grandfather's name was Duval; he was a barber and perruquier by
+     trade, and elder of the French Protestant church at Winchelsea. I
+     was sent to board with his correspondent, a Methodist grocer, at
+     Rye.
+
+     "These two kept a fishing-boat, but the fish they caught was many
+     and many a barrel of Nantz brandy, which we landed--never mind
+     where--at a place to us well known. In the innocence of my heart,
+     I--a child--got leave to go out fishing. We used to go out at night
+     and meet ships from the French coast.
+
+     "I learned to scuttle a marlinspike,
+                   reef a lee-scupper,
+                   keelhaul a bowsprit
+
+     as well as the best of them. How well I remember the jabbering of
+     the Frenchmen the first night as they handed the kegs over to us!
+     One night we were fired into by his Majesty's revenue cutter
+     _Lynx_. I asked what those balls were fizzing in the water, etc.
+
+     "I wouldn't go on with the smuggling; being converted by Mr.
+     Wesley, who came to preach to us at Rye--but that is neither here
+     nor there...."
+
+
+[Illustration: _The Ypres Tower, Rye._]
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN WESLEY]
+
+It was under the large tree of the west wall of the churchyard that in
+1790 John Wesley preached his last outdoor sermon, afterwards walking
+through "that poor skeleton of ancient Winchelsea," as he called it.
+
+Rye, like Winchelsea, has had a richer history than I can cope with. She
+was an important seaport from the earliest times; and among other of our
+enemies who knew her value were the Danes, two hundred and fifty of
+whose vessels entered the harbour in the year 893. Later the French
+continually menaced her, hardly less than her sister Cinque Port, but
+Rye bore so little malice that during the persecutions in France in the
+sixteenth century she received hundreds of Huguenot refugees, whose
+descendants still live in the town. Many monarchs have come hither,
+among them Queen Elizabeth, in 1573, dubbing Rye "Rye Royal" and
+Winchelsea "Little London."
+
+[Sidenote: THE THREE JEAKES]
+
+Rye has had at least one notable son, John Fletcher the dramatist,
+associate of Francis Beaumont and perhaps of Shakespeare, and author of
+"The Faithful Shepherdess." Fletcher's father was vicar of Rye. The town
+also gave birth to a curious father, son, and grandson, all named Samuel
+Jeake. The first, born in 1623, the author of "The Charters of the
+Cinque Ports," 1728, was a lawyer, a bold Nonconformist, a preacher, an
+astrologer and an alchemist, whose library contained works in fifteen
+languages but no copy of Shakespeare or Milton. He left a treatise on
+the Elixir of Life. The second, at the age of nineteen, was "somewhat
+acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, rhetoric, logic, poetry,
+natural philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, cosmography, astronomy,
+astrology, geography, theology, physics, dialling, navigation,
+caligraphy, stenography, drawing, heraldry and history." He also drew
+horoscopes, wrote treatises on astrology and other sciences, suffered,
+like his father, for his religion, and when he was twenty-nine married
+Elizabeth Hartshorne, aged thirteen and a half. They had six children.
+The third Samuel Jeake was famous for constructing a flying machine,
+which refused to fly, and nearly killed him.
+
+Rye also possessed an unknown poet. On a blank leaf in an old book in
+the town's archives is written this poem, in the hand of Henry VIII.'s
+time:--
+
+
+     What greater gryffe may hape
+     Trew lovers to anoye,
+     Then absente for to sepratte them
+     From ther desiered joye?
+
+     What comforte reste them then
+     To ease them of ther smarte,
+     But for to thincke and myndful bee
+     Of them they love in harte?
+
+     And eicke that they assured bee
+     Etche toe another in harte,
+     That nothinge shall them seperate
+     Untylle deathe doe them parte?
+
+     And thoughe the dystance of the place
+     Doe severe us in twayne,
+     Yet shall my harte thy harte imbrace
+     Tyll we doe meete agayne.
+
+
+[Sidenote: THE SANGUINARY BUTCHER]
+
+The church, the largest in Sussex, dominates Rye from every point, and
+so tightly are the houses compressed that from the plain the spire seems
+to be the completion not only of the church but of the town too. The
+building stands in what is perhaps the quietest and quaintest church
+square in England, possessing beyond all question the discreetest of
+pawnbroker's shops, marked by three brass balls that positively have
+charm. The church is cool and spacious, with noble plain windows (and
+one very pretty little one by Burne-Jones), and some very interesting
+architectural features. Too little care seems, however, to have been
+spent upon it at some previous time. The verger shows with a pride
+little short of proprietary a mahogany altar said to have been taken
+from one of the vessels of the Armada (and therefore oddly inappropriate
+for a Church of England service), and the tomb of one Alan Grebell, who,
+happening one night in 1742 to be wearing the cloak of his
+brother-in-law the Mayor, was killed in mistake for him by a "sanguinary
+butcher" named Breeds. Breeds, who was hanged in chains for his crime,
+remains perhaps the most famous figure in the history of Rye.
+
+Externally Rye church is magnificent, but the pity of it is that its
+encroaching square deprives one of the power to study it as a whole.
+Among the details, however, are two admirable flying buttresses. The
+clock over the beautiful north window, which is said to have been given
+to the town by Queen Elizabeth, is remarkable for the two golden cherubs
+that strike the hours, and the pendulum that swings in the central tower
+of the church, very nigh the preacher's head.
+
+[Sidenote: EIGHT BELLS]
+
+Rye's eight bells bear the following inscription:--
+
+
+     To honour both of God and King
+     Our voices shall in concert ring.
+
+     May heaven increase their bounteous store
+     And bless their souls for evermore.
+
+     Whilst thus we join in joyful sound
+     May love and loyalty abound.
+
+     Ye people all who hear me ring
+     Be faithful to your God and King.
+
+     Such wondrous power to music's given
+     It elevates the soul to heaven.
+
+     If you have a judicious ear
+     You'll own my voice is sweet and clear.
+
+     Our voices shall with joyful sound
+     Make hills and valleys echo round.
+
+     In wedlock bands all ye who join,
+       With hands your hearts unite;
+     So shall our tuneful tongues combine
+       To laud the nuptial rite.
+
+     Ye ringers, all who prize
+       Your health and happiness,
+     Be sober, merry, wise,
+       And you'll the same possess.
+
+
+Hardly less interesting than the church are the by-streets of Rye, so
+old and simple and quiet and right; particularly perhaps Mermaid Street,
+with its beautiful hospital. In the High Street, which is busier, is
+the George Inn, the rare possessor of a large assembly room with a
+musicians' gallery. One only of Rye's gates is standing--the Landgate;
+but on the south rampart of the town is the Ypres Tower (called Wipers
+by the prosaic inhabitants), a relic of the twelfth century, guarding
+Rye once from perils by sea and now from perils by land. Standing by the
+tower one may hear below shipbuilders busy at work and observe all the
+low-pulsed life of the river. A mile or so away is Rye Harbour, and
+beyond it the sea; across the intervening space runs a little train with
+its freight of golf players. In the east stretches Romney Marsh to the
+hills of Folkestone.
+
+Extremes meet in Rye. When I was last there the passage of the Landgate
+was made perilous by an approaching Panhard; the monastery of the
+Augustine friars on Conduit Hill had become a Salvation Army barracks;
+and in the doorway of the little fourteenth-century chapel of the
+Carmelites, now a private house, in the church square, a perambulator
+waited. Moreover, in the stately red house at the head of Mermaid Street
+the author of _The Awkward Age_ prosecutes his fascinating analyses of
+twentieth-century temperaments.
+
+[Sidenote: RYE POTTERY]
+
+Among the industries of Rye is the production of an ingenious variety of
+pottery achieved by affixing to ordinary vessels of earthenware a veneer
+of broken pieces of china--usually fragments of cups and saucers--in
+definite patterns that sometimes reach a magnificence almost Persian.
+For the most part the result is not perhaps beautiful, but it is always
+gay, and the Rye potter who practises the art deserves encouragement. I
+saw last summer a piece of similar ware in a cottage on the banks of the
+Ettrick, but whether it had travelled thither from Rye, or whether
+Scotch artists work in the same medium, I do not know. Mr. Gasson, the
+artificer (the dominating name of Gasson is to Rye what that of Seiler
+is to Zermatt), charges a penny for the inspection of the four rooms of
+his house in which his pottery, his stuffed birds and other curiosities
+are collected. The visit must be epoch-making in any life. Never again
+will a broken tea-cup be to any of Mr. Gasson's patrons merely a broken
+tea-cup. Previously it may have been that and nothing more; henceforward
+it is valuable material which, having completed one stage of existence,
+is, like the good Buddhist, entering upon another of increased radiance.
+More, broken china may even become the symbol of Rye.
+
+[Illustration: _Court Lodge, Udimore._]
+
+[Sidenote: PETT AND ICKLESHAM]
+
+Between Hastings and Winchelsea are the villages of Guestling, Pett, and
+Icklesham, the last two on the edge of the Level. Of these, Icklesham is
+the most interesting, Guestling having recently lost its church by fire,
+and Pett church being new. Pett stands in a pleasant position at the end
+of the high ground, with nothing in the east but Pett Level, and the sea
+only a mile away. At very low tide the remains of a submerged forest
+were once discernible, and may still be.
+
+Icklesham also stands on the ridge further north, overlooking the Level
+and the sea, with Winchelsea not two miles distant in the east. The
+church is a very fine one, with a most interesting Norman tower in its
+midst. The churchwardens accounts contain some quaint entries:
+
+[Sidenote: CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS]
+
+1732. Paid for ye Stokes [stocks] _L_4 10_s._ 8-3/4_d._
+
+1735. January ye 13 pd for a pint of wine and for eight pound of
+mutton for Good[man] Row and Good[man] Winch and Goody Sutors for their
+being with Goody in her fitts 3_s._
+
+1744. Fevery ye 29 paid Gudy Tayler for going to Winshelse for to give
+her Arthor Davy [affidavit] 1_s._ 6_d._
+
+1746. April 26 gave the Ringers for Rejoycing when ye Rebels was beat
+15_s._ (This refers to Culloden. There are two sides in every battle;
+how do Burns's lines run?--
+
+
+     Drumossie moor--Drumossie day--
+     A waefu' day it was to me!
+     For there I lost my father dear,
+     My father dear, and brethren three.)
+
+
+One of the Icklesham gravestones, standing over the grave of James King,
+who died aged seventeen, has this complacent couplet:
+
+
+     God takes the good--too good on earth to stay,
+     And leaves the bad--too bad to take away.
+
+
+Two miles to the west of Icklesham, at Snaylham, close to the present
+railway, once stood the home of the Cheyneys, a family that maintained
+for many years a fierce feud with the Oxenbridges of Brede, whither we
+soon shall come. A party of Cheyneys once succeeded in catching an
+Oxenbridge asleep in his bed, and killed him. Old Place farm, a little
+north of Icklesham, between the village and the line, marks the site of
+Old Place, the mansion of the Fynches, earls of Winchelsea.
+
+[Sidenote: PLAYDEN AND IDEN]
+
+The mainland proper begins hard by Rye, on the other side of the
+railway, where Rye Hill carries the London road out of sight. This way
+lie Playden, Iden, and Peasmarsh: Playden, with a slender spire, of a
+grace not excelled in a county notable, as we have seen, for graceful
+spires, but a little overweighted perhaps by its cross, within whose
+church is the tomb of a Flemish brewer, named Zoctmanns, calling for
+prayers for his soul; Iden, with a square tower and a stair turret, a
+village taking its name from that family of which Alexander Iden, slayer
+of Jack Cade, was a member, its home being at Mote, now non-existent;
+and Peasmarsh, whose long modest church, crowned by a squat spire, may
+be again seen, like the swan upon St. Mary's Lake, in the water at the
+foot of the churchyard. At Peasmarsh was born a poor artificial poet
+named William Pattison, in whose works I have failed to find anything of
+interest.
+
+[Illustration: _Udimore Church._]
+
+The two most interesting spots in the hilly country immediately north of
+the Brede valley (north of Winchelsea) are Udimore and Brede. Concerning
+Udimore church, which externally has a family resemblance to that of
+Steyning, it is told that it was originally planned to rise on the other
+side of the little river Ree. The builders began their work, but every
+night saw the supernatural removal of the stones to the present site,
+while a mysterious voice uttered the words "O'er the mere! O'er the
+mere!" Hence, says the legend, the present position of the fane, and the
+beautiful name Udimore, or "O'er the mere," which, of course, becomes
+Uddymer among the villagers.
+
+[Illustration: _Brede Place._]
+
+[Sidenote: BREDE PLACE]
+
+From Udimore one reaches Brede by turning off the high road about two
+miles to the east. But it is worth while to keep to the road a little
+longer, and entering Gilly Wood (on the right) explore as wild and
+beautiful a ravine as any in the county. And, on the Brede by-road, it
+is worth while also to turn aside again in order to see Brede Place.
+This house, like all the old mansions (it is of the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries), is set in a hollow, and is sufficiently gloomy in
+appearance and surroundings to lend colour to the rumour that would have
+it haunted--a rumour originally spread by the smugglers who for some
+years made the house their headquarters. An underground passage is said
+to lead from Brede Place to the church, a good part of a mile distant;
+but as is usual with underground passages, the legend has been held so
+dear that no one seems to have ventured upon the risk of disproving it.
+Amid these medieval surroundings the late Stephen Crane, the American
+writer, conceived some of his curiously modern stories.
+
+One of the original owners (the Oxenbridges) like Col. Lunsford of East
+Hoathly was credited by the country people with an appetite for
+children. Nothing could compass his death but a wooden saw, with which
+after a drunken bout the villagers severed him in Stubb's Lane, by
+Groaning Bridge. Not all the family, however, were bloodthirsty, for at
+least two John Oxenbridges of the sixteenth century were divines, one a
+Canon of Windsor, the other a "grave and reverent preacher."
+
+[Sidenote: DEAN SWIFT'S CRADLE]
+
+The present vicar of Brede, the village on the hill above Brede Place,
+has added to the natural antiquities of his church several alien
+curiosities, chief among them being the cradle in which Dean Swift was
+rocked. It is worth a visit to Brede church to be persuaded that that
+matured Irishman ever was a baby.
+
+[Illustration: _Brede Place, from the South._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+ROBERTSBRIDGE
+
+     Horace Walpole in difficulties--A bibliophile's
+     threat--Salehurst--Bodiam--Northiam--Queen Elizabeth's dinner and
+     shoes--Brightling--Jack Fuller--Turner in East Sussex--The Burwash
+     country--Sussex superstitions--_Sussex Folk and Sussex
+     Ways_--Liberals and Conservatives--The Sussex
+     character--Independent bellringers--"Silly Sussex"--Burwash at
+     Cricket--James Hurdis--A donkey race--"A hint to great and little
+     men"--Henry Burwash--Etchingham--Sir John Lade and the
+     Prince--Ticehurst and Wadhurst.
+
+
+Robertsbridge is not in itself a particularly attractive place; but it
+has a good inn, and many interesting villages may be reached from it,
+the little light railway that runs from the town to Tenterden, along the
+Rother valley, making the exploration of this part of Sussex very
+simple.
+
+Horace Walpole came to difficulties hereabout during his Sussex journey.
+His sprightly and heightened account is in one of the letters: "The
+roads grew bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness,
+our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at
+all killed, we got up, or down--I forget which, it was so dark,--a
+famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a
+wretched village called Rotherbridge. We had still six miles hither, but
+determined to stop, as it would be a pity to break our necks before we
+had seen all we had intended. But, alas! there was only one bed to be
+had: all the rest were inhabited by smugglers, whom the people of the
+house called mountebanks; and with one of whom the lady of the den told
+Mr. Chute he might lie. We did not at all take to this society, but,
+armed with links and lanthorns, set out again upon this impracticable
+journey. At two o'clock in the morning we got hither to a still worse
+inn, and that crammed with excise officers, one of whom had just shot a
+smuggler. However, as we were neutral powers, we have passed safely
+through both armies hitherto, and can give you a little farther history
+of our wandering through these mountains, where the young gentlemen are
+forced to drive their curricles with a pair of oxen. The only morsel of
+good road we have found, was what even the natives had assured us were
+totally impracticable; these were eight miles to Hurst Monceaux."
+
+[Sidenote: FOR BOOK BORROWERS]
+
+A pretty memento of the Cistercian Abbey here, of which small traces
+remain on the bank of the river, has wandered to the Bodleian, in the
+shape of an old volume containing the inscription: "This book belongs to
+St. Mary of Robertsbridge; whoever shall steal or sell it, let him be
+Anathema Maranatha!" Since no book was ever successfully protected by
+anything less tangible than a chain, it came into other hands,
+underneath being written: "I John Bishop of Exeter know not where the
+aforesaid house is; nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a
+lawful way." On the suppression of the Abbey of Robertsbridge by Henry
+VIII. the lands passed to Sir William Sidney, grandfather of Sir Philip.
+
+Salehurst, just across the river from Robertsbridge, has a noble church,
+standing among trees on the hill side--the hill which Walpole found so
+precipitous. Within, the church is not perhaps quite so impressive as
+without, but it has monuments appertaining probably to the Culpepers,
+once a far-reaching aristocratic Sussex family, which we met first at
+Ardingly, and which is now extinct or existent only among the peasantry.
+
+[Illustration: _Bodiam Castle._]
+
+[Sidenote: BODIAM CASTLE]
+
+The first station on the Rother valley light railway is Bodiam, only a
+few steps from Bodiam Castle sitting serenely like a bird on the waters
+of her moat. This building in appearance and form fulfils most of the
+conditions of the castle, and by retaining water in its moat perhaps
+wins more respect than if it had stood a siege. (Local tradition indeed
+credits it with that mark of active merit, but history is silent.) It
+was built in the fourteenth century by Sir Edward Dalyngruge, a hero of
+Cressy and Poictiers. It is now a ruin within, but (as Mr. Griggs'
+drawing shows) externally in fair preservation and a very interesting
+and romantic spectacle.
+
+Below Bodiam is Ewhurst, and a little farther east, close to the Kentish
+border, Northiam. Ewhurst has no particular interest, but Northiam is a
+village apart. Knowing what we do of Sussex speech we may be certain
+that Northiam is not pronounced by the native as it is spelt. Norgem is
+its local style, just as Udiham is Udgem and Bodiam Bodgem. But though
+he will not give Northiam its pleasant syllables, the Northiam man is
+proud of his village. He has a couplet:
+
+
+     Oh rare Northiam, thou dost far exceed
+     Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore and Brede.
+
+
+Northiam's superiority to these pleasant spots is not absolute; but
+there are certain points in which the couplet is sound. For example,
+although Brede Place has no counterpart in Northiam, and although beside
+Udimore's lovely name Northiam has an uninspired prosaic ring, yet
+Northiam is alone in the possession of Queen Elizabeth's Oak, the tree
+beneath which that monarch, whom we have seen on a progress in West
+Sussex, partook in 1573 of a banquet, on her way to Rye. The fare came
+from the kitchen of the timbered house hard by, then the residence of
+Master Bishopp. During the visit her Majesty changed her shoes, and the
+discarded pair is still treasured at Brickwall, the neighbouring seat of
+the Frewens, the great family of Northiam for many generations. The
+shoes are of green damask silk, with heels two and a half inches high
+and pointed toes. The Queen was apparently so well satisfied with her
+repast that on her return journey three days later she dined beneath the
+oak once more. But she changed no more shoes.
+
+Brickwall, which is occasionally shown, is a noble old country mansion,
+partly Elizabethan and partly Stuart. In the church are many Frewen
+memorials, the principal of which are in the Frewen mausoleum, a
+comparatively new erection. Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York, was
+from Northiam.
+
+[Sidenote: A DANISH VESSEL]
+
+In a field near the Rother at Northiam was discovered, in the year 1822,
+a Danish vessel, which had probably sunk in the ninth century in some
+wide waterway now transformed to land or shrunk to the dimensions of the
+present stream. Her preservation was perfect. Horsfield thus describes
+the ship: "Her dimensions were, from head to stern, 65 feet, and her
+width 14 feet, with cabin and forecastle; and she appears to have
+originally had a whole deck. She was remarkably strongly built; her bill
+pieces and keels measuring 2 feet over, her cross beams, five in number,
+18 inches by 8, with her other timbers in proportion; and in her
+caulking was a species of moss peculiar to the country in which she was
+built. In the cabin and other parts of the vessel were found a human
+skull; a pair of goat's horns attached to a part of the cranium; a dirk
+or poniard, about half an inch of the blade of which had wholly resisted
+corrosion; several glazed and ornamental tiles of a square form; some
+bricks which had formed the fire hearth; several parts of shoes, or
+rather sandals, fitting low on the foot, one of which was apparently in
+an unfinished state, having a last remaining in it, all of them very
+broad at the toes; two earthern jars and a stone mug, all of very
+ancient shape, a piece of board exhibiting about thirty perforations,
+probably designed for keeping the lunar months, or some game or
+amusement; with many other antique relics."
+
+[Sidenote: OLD JACK FULLER]
+
+Four miles west of Robertsbridge, up hill and down, is Brightling, whose
+Needle, standing on Brightling Down, 646 feet high, is visible from most
+of the eminences in this part of Sussex. The obelisk, together with the
+neighbouring observatory, was built on the site of an old beacon by the
+famous Jack Fuller--famous no longer, but in his day (he died in 1834
+aged seventy-seven) a character both in London and in Sussex. He was big
+and bluff and wealthy and the squire of Rose Hill. He sat for Sussex
+from 1801 to 1812, and was once carried from the House by the Sergeant
+at Arms and his minions, for refusing to give way in a debate and
+calling the Speaker "the insignificant little fellow in a wig." His
+election cost him _L_20,000 plus _L_30,000 subscribed by the county. When
+Pitt offered him a peerage he said no: "I was born Jack Fuller and Jack
+Fuller I'll die." When he travelled from Rose Hill to London Mr.
+Fuller's progresses were almost regal. The coach was provisioned as if
+for arctic exploration and coachman and footmen alike were armed with
+swords and pistols. ("Honest Jack," as Mr. Lower remarks, put a small
+value upon the honesty of others.) Mr. Fuller had two hobbies, music and
+science. He founded the Fullerian professorships (which he called his
+two children), and contributed liberally to the Royal Institution; and
+his musical parties in London were famous. But whether it is true that
+when the Brightling choir dissatisfied him he presented the church with
+nine bassoons, I cannot say.
+
+[Sidenote: TURNER IN SUSSEX]
+
+John Fuller has a better claim to be remembered in Sussex by his
+purchase of Bodiam Castle, when its demolition was threatened, and by
+his commission to Turner to make pictures in the Rape of Hastings, five
+of which were engraved and published in folio form, in 1819, under the
+title _Views in Sussex_. One of these represents the Brightling
+Observatory as seen from Rosehill Park. As a matter of fact, the
+observatory, being of no interest, is almost invisible, although Mr.
+Reinagle, A.R.A., who supplies the words to the pictures, calls it the
+"most important point in the scene." Furthermore, he says that the
+artist has expressed a shower proceeding "from the left corner." Another
+picture is the Vale of Ashburnham, with the house in the middle
+distance, Beachy Head beyond, and in the foreground woodcutters carrying
+wood in an ox waggon. "The whole," says Mr. Reinagle, A.R.A., "is
+happily composed, if I may use the term." He then adds: "The eye of the
+spectator, on looking at this beautifully painted scene, roves with an
+eager delight from one hill to another, and seems to play on the dappled
+woods till arrested by the seat of Lord Ashburnham." Other pictures in
+the folio are "Pevensey Bay from Crowhurst Park," a very beautiful
+scene, "Battle Abbey," and "The Vale of Heathfield," painted from a
+point above the road, with Heathfield House on the left, the tower on
+the right, the church in the centre in the middle distance, and the sea
+on the horizon: an impressive but not strictly veracious landscape.
+
+In Brightling church is a bust to John Fuller, with the motto: "Utile
+nihil quod non honestum." A rector in Fuller's early days was William
+Hayley, who died in 1789, a zealous antiquary. His papers relating to
+the history of Sussex, are now, like those of Sir William Burrell, in
+the British Museum.
+
+Our next village is Burwash, three miles in the north, built, like all
+the villages in this switchback district, on a hill. We are now,
+indeed, well in the heart of the fatiguing country which we touched at
+Mayfield, where one eminence is painfully won only to reveal another.
+One can be as parched on a road in the Sussex hop country as in the
+Arabian desert. The eye, however, that is tired of hop poles and hills
+can find sweet gratification in the cottages. Sussex has charming
+cottages from end to end of her territory, but I think the hop district
+on the Kentish side has some of the prettiest. Blackberries too may be
+set down among the riches of the sand-hill villages.
+
+[Sidenote: SUPERSTITIONS]
+
+In Richard Jefferies' essay, "The Country-side: Sussex" (in _Field and
+Hedgerow_), describing this district of the country, is an amusing
+passage touching superstitions of these parts, picked up during hopping:
+
+"In and about the kiln I learned that if you smash a frog with a stone,
+no matter how hard you hit him, he cannot die till sunset. You must be
+careful not to put on any new article of clothing for the first time on
+a Saturday, or some severe punishment will ensue. One person put on his
+new boots on a Saturday, and on Monday broke his arm. Some still believe
+in herbs, and gather wood-betony for herb tea, or eat dandelion leaves
+between slices of dry toast. There is an old man living in one of the
+villages who has reached the age of a hundred and sixty years, and still
+goes hop-picking. Ever so many people had seen him, and knew all about
+him; an undoubted fact, a public fact; but I could not trace him to his
+lair. His exact whereabouts could not be fixed. I live in hopes of
+finding him in some obscure 'Hole' yet (many little hamlets are 'Holes,'
+as Froghole, Foxhole). What an exhibit for London! Did he realise his
+own value, he would soon come forth. I joke, but the existence of this
+antique person is firmly believed in."
+
+Burwash is one of the few Sussex villages that has been made the subject
+of a book. The Rev. John Coker Egerton's _Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_
+(from which I have already occasionally quoted) was written here,
+around materials collected during the author's period as rector of
+Burwash. Mr. Egerton was curate of Burwash from 1857 to 1862, and from
+1865 to 1867, when he became rector and remained in the living until his
+death in 1888. His book is a kindly collection of the shrewd and
+humorous sayings of his Sussex parishioners, anecdotes of characteristic
+incidents, records of old customs now passing or passed away--the whole
+fused by the rector's genial personality.
+
+[Sidenote: PARTY POLITICS]
+
+It is to Burwash and Mr. Egerton that we owe some characteristic scraps
+of Sussex philosophy. Thus, Mr. Egerton tells of an old conservative
+whose advice to young men was this: "Mind you don't never have nothing
+in no way to do with none of their new-fangled schemes." Another Sussex
+cynic defined party government with grim impartiality: "Politics are
+about like this: I've got a sow in my yard with twelve little uns, and
+they little uns can't all feed at once, because there isn't room enough;
+so I shut six on 'em out of the yard while tother six be sucking, and
+the six as be shut out, they just do make a hem of a noise till they be
+let in; and then they be just as quiet as the rest."
+
+The capacity of the Sussex man to put his foot down and keep it there,
+is shown in the refusal of Burwash to ring the bells when George IV.,
+then Prince of Wales, passed through the village on his return to
+Brighton from a visit to Sir John Lade at Etchingham; the reason given
+being that the First Gentleman in Europe when rung in on his way to Sir
+John's had said nothing about beer. This must have been during one of
+the Prince's peculiarly needy periods, for the withholding of strong
+drink from his friends was never one of his failings. Another Burwash
+radical used to send up to the rectory with a message that he was about
+to gather fruit and the rector must send down for the tithe. The
+rector's man would go down--and receive one gooseberry from a basket of
+ten: all that was to be gathered that day.
+
+Another Burwash man posed his vicar more agreeably and humorously in
+another manner. Finding him a little in liquor the pastor would have
+warned him against the habit, but the man was too quick. How was it, he
+asked the vicar with well affected or real concern, that whenever he had
+had too much to drink he felt more religious than at any other time?
+
+The Burwash records indeed go far to redeem Sussex men from the epithet
+"silly," which is traditionally theirs. Concerning this old taunt, I
+like the rector's remarks in _Idlehurst_. The phrase, he says, "is
+better after all than 'canny owd Cummerlan'' or calling ourselves 'free
+and enlightened citizens' or 'heirs to all the ages.' But suppose Sussex
+as silly as you like, the country wants a large preserve of fallow
+brains; you can't manure the intellect for close cropping. Isn't it
+Renan who attributes so much to solid Breton stupidity in his
+ancestors?" I notice that Mr. H. G. Wells, in his very interesting book,
+_Mankind in the Making_, is in support of this suggestion. The
+_Idlehurst_ rector, in contrasting Londoners with Sussex folk,
+continues: "The Londoner has all his strength in the front line: one can
+never tell what reserves the countryman may not deploy in his slow way."
+(Some old satirist of the county had it that the crest of the true
+Sussex peasant is a pig couchant, with the motto "I wunt be druv." I
+give this for what it is worth.)
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX RESERVES]
+
+It is to be doubted if any county has a monopoly of silliness. The fault
+of Sussex people rather is to lack reserves, not of wisdom but of
+effort. You see this in cricket, where although the Sussex men have done
+some of the most brilliant things in the history of the game (even
+before the days of their Oriental ally), they have probably made a
+greater number of tame attempts to cope with difficulties than any other
+eleven. For the "staying of a rot" Sussex has had but few
+qualifications. The cricket test is not everything: but character tells
+there just as in any other employment. Burwash, however, must be
+exempted from this particular charge, for, whatever its form may be
+now, its eleven had once a terrible reputation. I find in the county
+paper for 1771 an advertisement to the effect that Burwash, having
+"challenged all its neighbours without effect," invites a match with any
+parish whatsoever in all Sussex.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DONKEY RACE]
+
+Mr. Egerton was not the first parson to record the manners of the
+Burwash parishioner. The Rev. James Hurdis, curate there towards the end
+of the preceding century, and afterwards Professor of Poetry at Oxford
+(we saw his grave at Bishopstone), had written a blank verse poem in the
+manner of Cowper, with some of the observation of Crabbe, entitled "The
+Village Curate," which is a record of his thoughts and impressions in
+his Burwash days. One could hardly say that "The Village Curate" would
+bear reprinting at the present time; we have moved too far from its
+pensiveness, and an age that does not read "The Task" and only talks
+about Crabbe is hardly likely to reach out for Hurdis. But within its
+limits "The Village Curate" is good, alike in its description of
+scenery, its reflections and its satire. The Burwash donkey race is
+capital:--
+
+
+     Then comes the ass-race. Let not wisdom frown,
+     If the grave clerk look on, and now and then
+     Bestow a smile; for we may see, Alcanor,
+     In this untoward race the ways of life.
+     Are we not asses all? We start and run,
+     And eagerly we press to pass the goal,
+     And all to win a bauble, a lac'd hat.
+     Was not great Wolsey such? He ran the race,
+     And won the hat. What ranting politician,
+     What prating lawyer, what ambitious clerk,
+     But is an ass that gallops for a hat?
+     For what do Princes strive, but golden hats?
+     For diadems, whose bare and scanty brims
+     Will hardly keep the sunbeam from their eyes.
+     For what do Poets strive? A leafy hat,
+     Without or crown or brim, which hardly screens
+     The empty noddle from the fist of scorn,
+     Much less repels the critic's thund'ring arm.
+     And here and there intoxication too
+     Concludes the race. Who wins the hat, gets drunk.
+     Who wins a laurel, mitre, cap, or crown,
+     Is drunk as he. So Alexander fell,
+     So Haman, Caesar, Spenser, Wolsey, James.
+
+
+[Sidenote: A STRATEGIC DUELLIST]
+
+I find in the Sussex paper for 1792 the following contribution to the
+history of Burwash: "A Hint to Great and Little Men.--Last Thursday
+morning a butcher and a shopkeeper of Burwash, in this County, went into
+a field near that town, with pistols, to decide a quarrel of long
+standing between them. The lusty Knight of the Cleaver having made it a
+practice to insult his antagonist, who is a very little man, the great
+disparity between them in size rendered this the only eligible
+alternative for the latter. The butcher took care to inform his wife of
+the intended meeting, in hopes that she would give the Constables timely
+notice thereof. But the good woman not having felt so deeply interested
+in his fate as he expected, to make sure, he sent to the Constable
+himself, and then marched reluctantly to the field, where the little,
+spirited shopkeeper was parading with a considerable reserve of
+ammunition, lest his first fire should not take place. Now the
+affrighted butcher proceeded slowly to charge his pistols, alternately
+looking towards the town and his impatient adversary. This man of blood,
+all pale and trembling, at last began to despair of any friendly
+interference, when the Constable very seasonably appeared and forbade
+the duel, to his great joy, and the disappointment of the spectators."
+
+[Sidenote: HENRY BURWASH]
+
+Burwash had another great man of whom it is not very proud. Fuller shall
+describe him:--"Henry Burwash, so named, saith my Author[3] (which is
+enough for my discharge) from _Burwash_, a Town in this County. He was
+one of _Noble Alliance_. And when this is said, _all is said_ to his
+commendation, being otherwise neither good for Church nor State,
+Soveraign nor Subjects; Covetous, Ambitious, Rebellious, Injurious.
+
+"Say not, _what makes he here then amongst the worthies_? For though
+neither _Ethically_ nor _Theologically_, yet _Historically_ he was
+remarkable, affording something for our _Information_ though not
+_Imitation_.
+
+"He was recommended by his kinsman _Bartholomew de Badilismer_ (Baron of
+_Leeds_ in _Kent_) to King _Edward_ the second, who preferred him Bishop
+of _Lincoln_. It was not long before, falling into the King's
+displeasure, his _Temporalities_ were seized on, and afterwards on his
+submission restored. Here, instead of new _Gratitude_, retayning his old
+_Grudge_, he was most forward to assist the Queen in the deposing of her
+husband. He was twice Lord Treasurer, once Chancellor, and once sent
+over Ambassador to the _Duke of Bavaria_. He died _Anno Domini_ 1340.
+
+"Such as mind to be merry may read the pleasant Story of his apparition,
+being condemned after Death to be _viridis viridarius, a green
+Forrester_ because in his life-time he had violently inclosed other
+men's Grounds into his Park. Surely such Fictions keep up the _best Park
+of Popery (Purgatory)_, whereby their _fairest Game_ and greatest Gaine
+is preserved."
+
+[Illustration: _Shoyswell, near Ticehurst._]
+
+Etchingham, the station next Robertsbridge, is famous for its church
+windows, and its brasses to the Etchinghams of the past, an illustrious
+race of Sussex barons. Among the brasses is that of William de
+Etchingham, builder of the church, who died in 1345. The inscription, in
+French, runs:--"I was made and formed of Earth; and now I have returned
+to Earth. William de Etchingham was my name. God have pity on my soul;
+and all you who pass by, pray to Him for me." Certainly no church in
+Sussex has so many interesting brasses as these. A moat once surrounded
+the God's acre, and legend had it that at the bottom was a great bell
+which might never be drawn forth until six yoke of white oxen were
+harnessed to it. Pity that the moat was allowed to run dry and the
+harmless fiction exposed.
+
+[Sidenote: A WAGER]
+
+Sir John Lade, diminutive associate of George IV. in his young days (and
+afterwards, coming upon disaster, coachman to the Earl of Anglesey),
+once lived at Haremere Hall, near by. As we have seen, the First
+Gentleman in Europe visited him there, and it was there one day, that,
+in default of other quarry, Sir John's gamekeeper only being able to
+produce a solitary pheasant, the Prince and his host shot ten geese as
+they swam across a pond, and laid them at the feet of Lady Lade. Sir
+John was the hero of the following exploit, recorded in the press in
+October, 1795:--"A curious circumstance occurred at Brighton on Monday
+se'nnight. Sir John Lade, for a trifling wager, undertook to carry Lord
+Cholmondeley on his back, from opposite the Pavilion twice round the
+Steine. Several ladies attended to be spectators of this extraordinary
+feat of the dwarf carrying the giant. When His Lordship declared himself
+ready, Sir John desired him to strip. 'Strip!' exclaimed the other; 'why
+surely you promised to carry me in my clothes!' 'By no means,' replied
+the Baronet; 'I engaged to carry _you_, but not an inch of clothes. So,
+therefore, My Lord, make ready, and let us not disappoint the ladies.'
+After much laughable altercation, it was at length decided that Sir John
+had won his wager, the Peer declining to exhibit _in puris
+naturalibus_."
+
+[Sidenote: THE HAWKHURST GANG]
+
+Ticehurst and Wadhurst, which may be reached either by road or rail from
+Robertsbridge or Etchingham, both stand high, very near the Kentish
+border. To the east of Hurst Green on the road thither (a hamlet
+disproportionate and imposing, possessing, in the George Inn, a relic of
+the days when the coaches came this way), is Seacox Heath, now the
+residence of Lord Goschen, but once the home of George Gray, a member of
+the terrible Hawkhurst gang of smugglers. Ticehurst has a noble church,
+very ingeniously restored, with a square tower, some fine windows, old
+glass, a vestry curiously situated over the porch, and an interesting
+brass.
+
+The Bell Inn, in the village, is said to date from the fifteenth
+century.
+
+At Wadhurst are many iron grave slabs and a graceful slender spire. The
+massive door bears the date 1682. A high village, in good accessible
+country, discovery seems to be upon it. London is not so near as at
+Crowborough; but one may almost hear the jingling of the cabs.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[3] Weever's _Funeral Monuments_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+TUNBRIDGE WELLS
+
+     Over the border--The beginnings of the wells--Tunbridge Wells
+     to-day--Mr. George Meredith--The Toad and other
+     rocks--Eridge--Trespassing in Sussex--Saxonbury--Bayham
+     Abbey--Lamberhurst--Withyham--The Sackvilles--A domestic
+     autocrat--"To all you ladies now on land"--Withyham church--The
+     Sackville monument--John Waylett--Beer and bells--Parish
+     expenses--Buckhurst and Old Buckhurst--Ashdown Forest--Hartfield
+     and Bolebroke--A wild region.
+
+
+I have made Tunbridge Wells our last centre, because it is convenient;
+yet as a matter of strict topography, the town is not in Sussex at all,
+but in Kent.
+
+In that it is builded upon hills, Tunbridge Wells is like Rome, and in
+that its fashionable promenade is under the limes, like Berlin; but in
+other respects it is merely a provincial English inland pleasure town
+with a past: rather arid, and except under the bracing conditions of
+cold weather, very tiring in its steepnesses. No wonder the small
+victoria and smaller pony carriage so flourish there.
+
+[Illustration: _The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells._]
+
+The healthful properties of Tunbridge Wells were discovered, as I record
+a little later, in 1606; but it was not until Henrietta Maria brought
+her suite hither in 1630 that the success of the new cure was assured.
+Afterwards came Charles II. and his Court, and Tunbridge Wells was made;
+and thenceforward to fail to visit the town at the proper time each year
+(although one had the poorest hut to live in the while) was to write
+one's self down a boor. A more sympathetic patron was Anne, who gave
+the first stone basin for the spring--hence "Queen's Well"--and whose
+subscription of _L_100 led to the purchase of the pantiles that paved the
+walk now bearing that name. Subsequently it was called the Parade, but
+to the older style everyone has very sensibly reverted.
+
+Tunbridge Wells is still a health resort, but the waters no longer
+constitute a part of the hygienic routine. Their companion element, air,
+is the new recuperative. Not that the spring at the foot of the Pantiles
+is wholly deserted: on the contrary, the presiding old lady does quite a
+business in filling and cleaning the little glasses; but those visitors
+that descend her steps are impelled rather by curiosity than ritual, and
+many never try again. Nor is the trade in Tunbridge ware, inlaid work in
+coloured woods, what it was. A hundred years ago there was hardly a girl
+of any pretensions to good form but kept her pins in a Tunbridge box.
+
+The Pantiles are still the resort of the idle, but of the anonymous
+rather than famous variety. Our men of mark and great Chams of
+Literature, who once flourished here in the season, go elsewhere for
+their recreation and renovation--abroad for choice. Tunbridge Wells now
+draws them no more than Bath. But in the eighteenth century a large
+print was popular containing the portraits of all the illustrious
+intellectuals as they lounged on the Pantiles, with Dr. Johnson and Mr.
+Samuel Richardson among the chief lions.
+
+[Sidenote: THE DUVIDNEY LADIES]
+
+The residential districts of Tunbridge Wells--its Mounts, Pleasant, Zion
+and Ephraim, with their discreet and prosperous villas--suggest to me
+only Mr. Meredith's irreproachable Duvidney ladies. In one of these
+well-ordered houses must they have lived and sighed over Victor's
+tangled life--surrounded by laurels and laburnum; the lawn either cut
+yesterday or to be cut to-day; the semicircular drive a miracle of
+gravel unalloyed; a pan of water for Tasso beside the dazzling step.
+Receding a hundred years, the same author peoples Tunbridge Wells again,
+for it was here, in its heyday, that Chloe suffered.
+
+[Sidenote: ROCKS]
+
+On Rusthall Common is the famous Toad Rock, which is to Tunbridge Wells
+what Thorwaldsen's lion is to Lucerne, and the Leaning Tower to Pisa.
+Lucerne's lion emerged from the stone under the sculptor's mallet and
+chisel, but the Rusthall monster was evolved by natural processes, and
+it is a toad only by courtesy. An inland rock is, however, to most
+English people so rare an object that Rusthall has almost as many
+pilgrims as Stonehenge. The Toad is free; the High Rocks, however, which
+are a mile distant, cannot be inspected by the curious for less than
+sixpence. One must pass through a turnstile before these wonders are
+accessible. Rocks in themselves having insufficient drawing power, as
+the dramatic critics say, a maze has been added, together with swings, a
+seesaw, arbours, a croquet lawn, and all the proper adjuncts of a
+natural phenomenon. The effect is to make the rocks appear more unreal
+than any rocks ever seen upon the stage. Freed from their
+pleasure-garden surroundings they would become beautifully wild and
+romantic and tropically un-English; but as it is, with their notice
+boards and bridges, they are disappointing, except of course to
+children. They are no disappointment to children; indeed, they go far to
+make Tunbridge Wells a children's wonderland. There is no kind of
+dramatic game to which the High Rocks would not make the best
+background. Finer rocks, because more remote and free from labels and
+tea rooms, are those known as Penn's Rocks, three miles in the
+south-west, in a beautiful valley.
+
+[Sidenote: SAXONBURY]
+
+Eridge, whither all visitors to Tunbridge Wells must at one time or
+another drive, is the seat of the Marquis of Abergavenny, whose imposing
+A, tied, like a dressing gown, with heavy tassels, is embossed on every
+cottage for miles around. In character the park resembles Ashburnham,
+while in extent it vies with the great parks of the south-west, Arundel,
+Goodwood and Petworth; but it has none of their spacious coolnesses. Yet
+Eridge Park has joys that these others know not of--brake fern four feet
+high, and the conical hill on which stands Saxonbury Tower, jealously
+guarded from the intruding traveller by the stern fiat of "Mr. Macbean,
+steward." Sussex is a paradise of notice boards (there is a little
+district near Forest Row where the staple industry must be the
+prosecuting of trespassers), and one has come ordinarily to look upon
+these monitions without active resentment; but when the Caledonian
+descends from his native heath to warn the Sussex man off Sussex
+ground--more, to warn the Saxon from his own bury--the situation becomes
+acute. By taking, however, the precaution of asking at a not too
+adjacent cottage for permission to ascend the hill, one may circumvent
+the Scottish prosecutor.
+
+The hill is very important ground in English history, as the following
+passage from Sir William Burrell's MSS. in the British Museum
+testifies:--"In Eridge Park are the remains of a military station of the
+Saxon invaders of the country, which still retains the name of Saxonbury
+Hill. It is on the high ground to the right, as the traveller passes
+from Frant to Mayfield. On the summit of this hill (from whence the
+cliffs of Dover may be seen) are to be traced the remains of an ancient
+fortification; the fosse is still plainly discernible, enclosing an area
+of about two acres, from whence there is but one outlet. The apex of the
+hill within is formed of a strong compact body of stone, brought hither
+from a distance, on which doubtless was erected some strong military
+edifice. This was probably one of the stations occupied by the Saxons
+under Ella, their famous chief, who, at the instance of Hengist, King of
+Kent, invaded England towards the close of the fifth century. It is said
+that they settled in Sussex, whence they issued in force to attack the
+important British station of Anderida or Andredceaster. Antiquaries are
+not agreed as to the precise situation of this military station; some
+imagining it to have been at Newenden, on the borders of Kent; others at
+Pevensey, or Hastings, in Sussex. The country, from the borders of Kent
+to those of Hampshire, comprises what was called the Forest of
+Andredsweald, now commonly called the Weald, was formerly full of strong
+holds and fastnesses, and was consequently well calculated for the
+retreat of the ancient Britons from before the regular armies of the
+Romans, as well as for the establishment of points of attack by the
+succeeding invaders who coped with them on terms somewhat reversed. The
+attack of the Saxons on Anderida was successful, and the consequence was
+their permanent establishment in Sussex and Surrey, from which time they
+probably retained a military station on this hill.
+
+"There is likewise within the park a place called Danes Gate. This was
+doubtless a part of a military way; and as it would happen that the last
+successful invaders would occupy the same strong posts which had been
+formed by their predecessors, this Danes Gate was probably the military
+communication between Crowborough, undoubtedly a Danish station, and
+Saxonbury Hill."
+
+The view from Saxonbury extends far in each quarter, embracing both
+lines of Downs, North and South. The long low irregular front of Eridge
+Castle is two or three miles to the north-west, with its lake before it.
+
+[Sidenote: LORD NORTH'S DISCOVERY]
+
+Queen Elizabeth stayed at Eridge for six days in 1573, on her progress
+to Northiam, where we saw her dining and changing her shoes. Lord
+Burleigh, who accompanied her, found the country hereabouts dangerous,
+and "worse than in the Peak." It was another of the guests at Eridge
+that made Tunbridge Wells; for had not Dudley, Lord North, when
+recuperating there in 1606, discovered that the (Devil-flavoured)
+chalybeate water of the neighbourhood was beneficial, the spring would
+not have been enclosed nor would other of London's fatigued young bloods
+have drunk of it.
+
+[Illustration: _Bayham Abbey._]
+
+[Sidenote: BAYHAM ABBEY]
+
+Enough remains of Bayham Abbey, five miles south-east of Tunbridge
+Wells, to show that it was once a very considerable monastery. The
+founder was Sir Robert de Turneham, one of the knights of Richard
+Coeur de Lion, famous for cracking many crowns with his "fauchion,"
+and the founder also of Combwell Abbey at Goudhurst, not far distant.
+Edward I. and Edward II. were both entertained at Bayham, while a
+fortunate visit from St. Richard, Bishop of Chichester, put the Abbey in
+possession of a bed (on which he had slept) which cured all them that
+afterwards lay in it. Between Bayham and Goudhurst is Lamberhurst, on
+the boundary. (The church and part of the street are indeed in Kent.)
+Lamberhurst's boast is that its furnaces were larger than any in Sussex;
+and that they made the biggest guns. The old iron railings around St.
+Paul's are said to have come from the Lamberhurst iron works--2,500 in
+all, each five feet six inches in height, with seven gates. The
+Lamberhurst cannon not only served England, but some, it is whispered,
+found their way to French privateers and were turned against their
+native land.
+
+Sweetest of spots in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells is Withyham,
+in the west, lying to the north of Ashdown Forest, a small and retired
+village, with a charming church, a good inn (the Dorset Arms), Duckings,
+a superb piece of old Sussex architecture, Old Buckhurst, an interesting
+ruin, new Buckhurst's magnificent park, and some of the best country in
+the county. Once the South Down district is left behind I think that
+Withyham is the jewel of Sussex. Moreover, the proximity of the wide
+high spaces of Ashdown Forest seems to have cleared the air; no longer
+is one conscious of the fatigue that appertains to the triangular hill
+district between Tunbridge Wells, Robertsbridge and Uckfield.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SPLENDID SACKVILLES]
+
+Withyham is notable historically for its association with the great and
+sumptuous Sackville family, which has held Buckhurst since Henry II.,
+and of which the principal figure is Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst,
+first Earl of Dorset, who was born here in 1536, Queen Elizabeth's Lord
+Treasurer and part author of _Gorboduc_. After him came Robert
+Sackville, second earl, who founded Sackville College at East Grinstead;
+and then Richard, the third earl, famous for the luxury in which he
+lived at Knole in Kent and Dorset House in London. Among this nobleman's
+retinue was a first footman rejoicing (I hope) in the superlatively
+suitable name of Acton Curvette: a name to write a comedy around.
+Richard Sackville, the fifth earl, was a more domestic peer, of whom we
+have some intimate and amusing glimpses in the memorandum books and
+diaries which he kept at Knole. Thus:--
+
+
+     "Hy. Mattock for scolding to extremity on Sunday 12th
+     October 1661 without cause                                  0 0 3
+
+     "Hy. Mattock for disposing of my Cast linnen without my
+     order                                                       0 0 3
+
+     "Robert Verrell for giving away my money                    0 0 6"
+
+
+[Sidenote: "TO ALL YOU LADIES"]
+
+Lastly we come to Charles Sackville, sixth earl, that Admirable
+Crichton, the friend of Charles II. and the patron of poets, who spent
+the night before an engagement in the Dutch war in writing the sprightly
+verses, "To all you ladies now on land," wherein occurs this agreeable
+fancy:--
+
+
+     Then, if we write not by each post,
+       Think not we are unkind;
+     Nor yet conclude our ships are lost
+       By Dutchmen or by wind;
+     Our tears we'll send a speedier way:
+     The tide shall bring them twice a day.
+
+     The king with wonder and surprise,
+       Will swear the seas grow bold;
+     Because the tides will higher rise
+       Than e'er they did of old:
+     But let him know it is our tears
+     Bring floods of grief to Whitehall-stairs.
+
+
+Upon the sixth Earl of Dorset's monument in Withyham Church is inscribed
+Pope's epitaph, beginning:--
+
+
+     Dorset, the grace of Courts, the Muses pride,
+     Patron of arts, and judge of nature dy'd!
+     The scourge of pride, though sanctify'd or great,
+     Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
+     Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
+     His anger moral, and his wisdom gay.
+
+
+The church is very prettily situated on a steep mound, at the western
+foot of which is a sheet of water; at the eastern foot, the village. So
+hidden by trees is it that approaching Withyham from Hartfield one is
+unconscious of its proximity. The glory of the church is the monument,
+in the Sackville Chapel, to Thomas Sackville, youngest son of the fifth
+Earl of Dorset. There is nothing among the many tombs which we have
+seen more interesting than this, although for charm it is not to be
+compared with, say, the Shurley monument at Isfield. The young man
+reclines on the tomb; at one side of him is the figure of his father,
+and at the other, of his mother, both life-like and life-size, dressed
+in their ordinary style. The attitudes being extremely natural the total
+effect is curiously realistic. On the sides of the tomb, in bas-relief,
+are the figures of the six brothers and six sisters of the youth, some
+quite babies. The sculptor was Caius Cibber, Colley Cibber's father.
+Other monuments are also to be seen in the Sackville Chapel, but that
+which I have described is the finest.
+
+Had Withyham church not been destroyed by fire, in 1663, in a "tempest
+of thunder and lightning," it would now be second to none in Sussex in
+interest and the richness of its tombs; for in that fire perished in the
+Sackville aisle, now no more, on the northern side, other and perhaps
+nobler Sackville monuments. The vaults, where many Sackvilles lie, were
+not however injured. In the Sackville Chapel is a large window recording
+the genealogy of the family, which is now represented by Earl De la
+Warr, at the foot of which are the words in Latin, "The noble family of
+Sackville here awaits the Resurrection."
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN WAYLETT, BELL-FOUNDER]
+
+Withyham has three of the bells of John Waylett, an itinerant
+bell-founder at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His method was
+to call on the vicar and ask if anything were wanted; and if a bell was
+cracked, or if a new one was desired, he would dig a mould in a
+neighbouring field, build a fire, collect his metal and perform the task
+on the spot. Waylett's business might be called the higher tinkering.
+Sussex has some forty of his bells. He cast the Steyning peal in 1724,
+and earlier in the same year he had made a stay at Lewes, erecting a
+furnace there, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us he used to do, and
+remedying defective peals all around. Among others he recast the old
+treble and made a new treble for Mayfield. It seems to have been
+universally thirsty work: the churchwardens' papers contain an account
+for beer in connection with the enterprise:
+
+[Sidenote: BEER]
+
+
+                                                           _L    s.  d._
+     For beer to the ringers when the Bell founder was here      2   6
+     When the bell was weighed                                   3   6
+     When the bell was loaded                                    2   0
+     In carrying ye bell to Lewes and back again            1   10   0
+     When the bell was waid and hung up                          3   0
+     For beer to the officers and several others a
+       hanging up ye bell                                       18   0
+     In beer to the ringers when ye bell was hung                6   6
+
+
+The Withyham churchwardens also expended 3_s._ 6_d._ on beer when
+Waylett came to spread thirst abroad. I find also among the entries from
+the parish account-book, which Mr. Sutton, the vicar, prints in his
+_Historical Notes on Withyham_, a very interesting and informing book,
+the following items:
+
+
+     1711. April ye 20, pd. to Goody Sweatman                   _s.  d._
+       for Beere had at ye Books making                          2   6
+
+     Aug. ye 19, pd. to Edward Groombridge for digging a
+       grave and Ringing ye Nell for Goody Hammond               2   6
+
+     Aug. ye 26, pd. to Sweatman for beere at ye
+       Writing of Boocks for ye window-tax                       2   0
+
+     Aug. 15th, Pd. to Sweatman for beer at ye
+       chusing of surveyor Decbr ye 26                           5   0
+
+     1714. Pd. to good wife Sweatman for beer
+       when ye bells were put to be cast                         2   6
+
+
+Buckhurst, one of the seats of Lord De la Warr, is a splendid domain,
+with the most perfect golf greens I ever saw, but no deer, all of them
+having been exiled a few years since. The previous home of the
+Sackvilles was Old Buckhurst in the valley to the west, of which only
+the husk now remains. One can see that the mansion was of enormous
+extent; and the walls were so strongly built that when an attempt was
+recently made to destroy and utilise a portion for road mending, the
+project had to be abandoned on account of the hardness of the mortar.
+One beautiful tower (out of six) still stands. An underground passage,
+which is said variously to lead to the large lake in Buckhurst Park, to
+the church, and to Bolebroke at Hartfield, has never been explored
+farther than the first door that blocks the way; nor have the seven cord
+of gold, rumoured to be buried near the house, come to light.
+
+[Sidenote: OLD RURAL ARCHITECTURE]
+
+[Sidenote: IN PRAISE OF "DUCKINGS"]
+
+It was of Duckings, the beautiful timbered farmhouse of which Withyham
+is justly proud, that Jefferies thus wrote, in his essay on "Buckhurst
+Park": "Our modern architects try to make their rooms mathematically
+square, a series of brick boxes, one on the other like pigeon-holes in a
+bureau, with flat ceilings and right angles in the corners, and are said
+to go through a profound education before they can produce these
+wonderful specimens of art. If our old English folk could not get an
+arched roof, then they loved to have it pointed, with polished timber
+beams in which the eye rested as in looking upwards through a tree.
+Their rooms they liked of many shapes, and not at right angles in the
+corners, nor all on the same dead level of flooring. You had to go up a
+step into one, and down a step into another, and along a winding passage
+into a third, so that each part of the house had its individuality. To
+these houses life fitted itself and grew to them; they were not mere
+walls, but became part of existence. A man's house was not only his
+castle, a man's house was himself. He could not tear himself away from
+his house, it was like tearing up the shrieking mandrake by the root,
+almost death itself. Now we walk in and out of our brick boxes
+unconcerned whether we live in this villa or that, here or yonder. Dark
+beams inlaid in the walls support the gables; heavier timber, placed
+horizontally, forms, as it were, the foundation of the first floor. This
+horizontal beam has warped a little in the course of time, the
+alternate heat and cold of summers and winters that make centuries. Up
+to this beam the lower wall is built of brick set to curve of the
+timber, from which circumstance it would appear to be a modern
+insertion. The beam, we may be sure, was straight originally, and the
+bricks have been fitted to the curve which it subsequently took. Time,
+no doubt, ate away the lower work of wood, and necessitated the
+insertion of new materials. The slight curve of the great beam adds, I
+think, to the interest of the old place, for it is a curve that has
+grown and was not premeditated; it has grown like the bough of a tree,
+not from any set human design. This, too, is the character of the house.
+It is not large, nor overburdened with gables, not ornamental, nor what
+is called striking, in any way, but simply an old English house, genuine
+and true. The warm sunlight falls on the old red tiles, the dark beams
+look the darker for the glow of light, the shapely cone of the hop-oast
+rises at the end; there are swallows and flowers, and ricks and horses,
+and so it is beautiful because it is natural and honest. It is the
+simplicity that makes it so touching, like the words of an old ballad.
+Now at Mayfield there is a timber house which is something of a show
+place, and people go to see it, and which certainly has many more lines
+in its curves and woodwork, but yet did not appeal to me, because it
+seemed too purposely ornamental. A house designed to look well, even age
+has not taken from its artificiality. Neither is there any cone nor
+cart-horses about. Why, even a tall chanticleer makes a home look
+homely. I do like to see a tall proud chanticleer strutting in the yard
+and barely giving way as I advance, almost ready to do battle with a
+stranger like a mastiff. So I prefer the simple old home by Buckhurst
+Park."
+
+[Sidenote: ASHDOWN FOREST]
+
+The forest of which Ashdown Forest was a part extended once in unbroken
+sombre density from Kent to Hampshire, a distance of 120 miles. It was
+known to the Romans as Sylva Anderida, giving its name to Anderida (or
+Pevensey) on the edge of it; to the Saxons it was Andreaswald. Wolves,
+wild boar and deer then roamed its dark recesses. Our Ashdown
+Forest--all that now remains of this wild track--was for long a Royal
+hunting ground. Edward III. granted it to John of Gaunt, who, there's no
+doubt, often came hither for sport. It is supposed that he built a
+chapel near Nutley ("Chapel Wood" marks the site) where, on one occasion
+at least, John Wycliffe the reformer officiated. At Forest Row, as we
+have seen, the later lords who hunted here built their lodges and kept
+their retainers. There are no longer any deer in the Forest; the modern
+sportsman approaches it with a cleek where his forerunner carried a bow.
+A hundred years ago, in the smuggling days, it was a very dangerous
+region.
+
+[Illustration: _Ashdown Forest, from East Grinstead._]
+
+Hartfield, the village next to Withyham in the west, is uninteresting;
+but it has a graceful church, and at Bolebroke, once the home of the
+Dalyngruges, whom we met at Bodiam, and later of the Sackvilles, are the
+remains of a noble brick mansion. The towered gateway still stands, and
+it is not difficult to reconstruct in the mind's eye the house in its
+best period. Of old cottage architecture Hartfield also has a pretty
+example in Lych-Gate Cottage, by the churchyard. "Castle field," north
+of the village, probably marks the site of an ancient castle, or hunting
+lodge, of the Barons of Pevensey. That there was good hunting in these
+parts the name Hartfield itself goes to prove.
+
+[Sidenote: OUR JOURNEY'S END]
+
+Between Withyham and Hartfield in the north, and Crowborough Beacon and
+Wych Cross in the south, is some of the finest open country in Sussex,
+where one may walk for hours and meet no human creature. Here are silent
+desolate woods--the Five Hundred Acre Wood, under Crowborough, chief of
+them--and vast wastes of undulating heath, rising here and there to
+great heights crowned with fir trees, as at Gill's Lap. A few enclosed
+estates interrupt the forest's open freedom, but nothing can tame it.
+Sombre dark heather gives the prevailing note, but between Old Lodge and
+Pippinford Park I once came upon a green and luxuriant valley that would
+not have been out of place in Tyrol; while there is a field near Chuck
+Hatch where in April one may see more dancing daffodils than ever
+Wordsworth did.
+
+And here we leave the county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE SUSSEX DIALECT
+
+     French words at Hastings and Rye--Saxon on the farms--Mr. W. D.
+     Parish's _Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_--The rules of the
+     game--The raciest of the words--A Sussex criticism of Disraeli--The
+     gender of a Sussex nose--A shepherd's adventures--Sussex words in
+     America--"The Song of Solomon" in the Sussex vernacular.
+
+
+The body of the Sussex dialect is derived from the Saxon. Its
+accessories can be traced to the Celts, to the Norse--thus _rape_, a
+division of the county, is probably an adaptation of the Icelandic
+_hreppr_--and to the French, some hundreds of Huguenots having fled to
+our shores after the Edict of Nantes. The Hastings fishermen, for
+example, often say _boco_ for plenty, and _frap_ to strike; while in the
+Rye neighbourhood, where the Huguenots were strongest, such words as
+_dishabil_ meaning untidy, undressed, and _peter grievous_ (from
+_petit-grief_) meaning fretful, are still used.
+
+But Saxon words are, of course, considerably more common. You meet them
+at every turn. A Sussex auctioneer's list that lies before me--a
+catalogue of live and dead farming stock to be sold at a homestead under
+the South Downs--is full of them. So blunt and sturdy they are, these
+ancient primitive terms of the soil: "Lot 1. Pitch prong, two half-pitch
+prongs, two 4-speen spuds, and a road hoe. Lot 5. Five short prongs,
+flint spud, dung drag, two turnip pecks, and two shovels. Lot 9. Six hay
+rakes, two scythes and sneaths, cross-cut saw, and a sheep hook. Lot 39.
+Corn chest, open tub, milking stool, and hog form. Lot 43. Bushel
+measure, shaul and strike. Lot 100. Rick borer. Lot 143. Eight knaves
+and seven felloes. Lot 148. Six dirt boards and pair of wood hames. Lot
+152. Wheelwright's sampson. Lot 174. Set of thill harness. Lot 201.
+Three plough bolts, three tween sticks. Lot 204. Sundry harness and
+whippances. Lot 208. Tickle plough. Lot 222. Iron turnwrist [pronounced
+turn-riced] plough. Lot 242. 9-time scarifier. Lot 251. Clod crusher.
+Lot 252. Hay tedder." From another catalogue more ram=alogues, these
+abrupt and active little words might be called, butt at one. As "Lot 4.
+Flint spud, two drain scoops, bull lead and five dibbles. Lot 10. Dung
+rake and dung devil. Lot 11. Four juts and a zinc skip." Farm labourers
+are men of little speech, and it is often needful that voices should
+carry far. Hence this crisp and forcible reticence. The vocabulary of
+the country-side undergoes few changes; and the noises to-day made by
+the ox-herd who urges his black and smoking team along the hill-side are
+precisely those that Piers Plowman himself would have used.
+
+[Sidenote: SAXON PERSISTENT]
+
+Another survival may be noticed in objurgation. A Sussex man swearing by
+Job, as he often does, is not calling in the aid of the patient sufferer
+of Uz, but Jobe, the Anglo-Saxon Jupiter.
+
+A few examples of Sussex speech, mainly drawn from Mr. Parish's
+_Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect_ will help to add the true flavour to
+these pages. Mr. Parish's little book is one of the best of its kind;
+that it is more than a contribution to etymology a very few quotations
+will show.
+
+[Sidenote: THE SUSSEX RULES]
+
+Mr. Parish lays down the following general principles of the Sussex
+tongue:--
+
+_a_ before double _d_ becomes _ar_; whereby ladder and adder are
+pronounced larder and arder.
+
+_a_ before double _l_ is pronounced like _o_; fallow and tallow become
+foller and toller.
+
+_a_ before _t_ is expanded into _ea_; rate, mate, plate, gate, are
+pronounced r[dot above e][dot above a]t, m[dot above e][dot above a]t,
+pl[dot above e][dot above a]t, g[dot above e][dot above a]t.
+
+_a_ before _ct_ becomes _e_; as satisfection, for satisfaction.
+
+_e_ before _ct_ becomes _a_; and affection, effect and neglect are
+pronounced affaction, effact and neglact.
+
+Double _e_ is pronounced as _i_ in such words as sheep, week, called
+ship and wick; and the sound of double _e_ follows the same rule in fild
+for field.
+
+Having pronounced _ee_ as _i_, the Sussex people in the most impartial
+manner pronounce _i_ as _ee_; and thus mice, hive, dive, become meece,
+heeve, and deeve.
+
+_i_ becomes _e_ in pet for pit, spet for spit, and similar words.
+
+_io_ and _oi_ change places respectively; and violet and violent become
+voilet and voilent, while boiled and spoiled are bioled and spioled.
+
+_o_ before _n_ is expanded into _oa_ in such words as pony, dont, bone;
+which are pronounced p[dot above o][dot above a]ny,
+d[dot above o][dot above a]nt, b[dot above o][dot above a]n.
+
+_o_ before _r_ is pronounced as _a_; as carn and marning, for corn and
+morning.
+
+_o_ also becomes _a_ in such words as rad, crass, and crap, for rod,
+cross, and crop.
+
+_ou_ is elongated into _aou_ in words like hound, pound, and mound;
+pronounced haound, paound, and maound.
+
+The final _ow_, as in many other counties, is pronounced er, as foller
+for fallow.
+
+The peculiarities with regard to the pronunciation of consonants are not
+so numerous as those of the vowels, but they are very decided, and seem
+to admit of less variation.
+
+Double _t_ is always pronounced as _d_; as liddle for little, &c., and
+the _th_ is invariably _d_; thus the becomes _de_; and these, them,
+theirs--dese, dem, deres.
+
+_d_ in its turn is occasionally changed into _th_; as in fother for
+fodder.
+
+The final _sp_ in such words as wasp, clasp, and hasp are reversed to
+wapse, clapse and hapse.
+
+Words ending in _st_ have the addition of a syllable in the possessive
+case and the plural, and instead of saying that "some little birds had
+built their nests near the posts of Mr. West's gate," a Sussex boy would
+say, "the birds had built their nestes near the postes of Mr. Westes'
+gate."
+
+[Sidenote: EAST AND WEST]
+
+Roughly speaking, Sussex has little or no dialect absolutely its own;
+for the country speech of the west is practically that also of
+Hampshire, and of the east, that of Kent. The dividing line between east
+and west, Mr. Cripps of Steyning tells me, is the Adur, once an estuary
+of the sea rather than the stream it now is, running far inland and
+separating the two Sussexes with its estranging wave.
+
+Mr. Parish's pages supply the following words and examples of their use,
+chosen almost at random:--
+
+Adone (Have done, Leave off): I am told on good authority that when a
+Sussex damsel says, "Oh! do adone," she means you to go on; but when she
+says, "Adone-do," you must leave off immediately.
+
+Crownation (Coronation): "I was married the day the Crownation was, when
+there was a bullock roasted whole up at Furrel [Firle] Park. I
+d[dot above o][dot above a]n't know as ever I eat anything so purty in
+all my life; but I never got no further than Furrel cross-ways all
+night, no more didn't a good many."
+
+Dentical (Dainty): "My Master says that this here Prooshian (query
+Persian) cat what you gave me is a deal too dentical for a poor man's
+cat; he wants one as will catch the meece and keep herself."
+
+Dunnamany (I do not know how many): "There was a dunnamany people come
+to see that gurt hog of mine when she was took bad, and they all guv it
+in as she was took with the information. We did all as ever we could for
+her. There was a bottle of stuff what I had from the doctor, time my leg
+was so bad, and we took and mixed it in with some milk and give it to
+her lew warm, but naun as we could give her didn't seem to do her any
+good."
+
+Foreigner (A stranger; a person who comes from any other county but
+Sussex): I have often heard it said of a woman in this village, who
+comes from Lincolnshire, that "she has got such a good notion of work
+that you'd never find out but what she was an Englishwoman, without you
+was to hear her talk."
+
+[Sidenote: "FRENCHYS"]
+
+Frenchy (A foreigner of any country who cannot speak English, the
+nationality being added or not, as the case seems to require): thus an
+old fisherman, giving an account of a Swedish vessel which was wrecked
+on the coast a year or two ago, finished by saying that he thought the
+French Frenchys, take 'em all in all, were better than the Swedish
+Frenchys, for he could make out what they were driving at, but he was
+all at sea with the others.
+
+Heart (Condition; said of ground): "I've got my garden into pretty good
+heart at last, and if so be as there warn't quite so many sparrs and
+greybirds and roberts and one thing and t'other, I dunno but what I
+might get a tidy lot of sass. But there! 'taint no use what ye do as
+long as there's so much varmint about."
+
+Hill (The Southdown country is always spoken of as "The Hill" by the
+people in the Weald): "He's gone to the hill, harvesting."
+
+Ink-horn (Inkstand): "Fetch me down de inkhorn, mistus; I be g'wine to
+putt my harnd to dis here partition to Parliament. 'Tis agin de Romans,
+mistus; for if so be as de Romans gets de upper harnd an us, we shall be
+burnded, and bloodshedded, and have our Bibles took away from us, and
+dere'll be a hem set out."
+
+Justabout (Certainly, extremely): "I justabout did enjoy myself up at
+the Cristial Palace on the Forresters' day, but there was a terr'ble
+gurt crowd; I should think there must have been two or three hundred
+people a-scrouging about."
+
+Know (Used as a substantive for knowledge): "Poor fellow, he has got no
+know whatsumdever, but his sister's a nice knowledgeable girl."
+
+Lamentable (Very): This word seems to admit of three degrees of
+comparison, which are indicated by the accentuation, thus:--
+
+[Sidenote: POSITIVE, COMPARATIVE, SUPERLATIVE]
+
+
+     _Positive_--Lamentable (as usually pronounced).
+     _Comparative_--Larmentable.
+     _Superlative_--Larment[dot above a][dot above a]ble.
+
+
+"'Master Chucks,' he says to me says he, ''tis larmentable purty
+weather, Master Crockham.' 'Larment[dot above a][dot above a]ble!' says
+I."
+
+Larder (Corruption of ladder): "Master's got a lodge down on the land
+yonder, and as I was going across t'other day-morning to fetch a larder
+we keeps there, a lawyer catched holt an me and scratched my face."
+(Lawyer: A long bramble full of thorns, so called because, "When once
+they gets a holt on ye, ye d[dot above o][dot above a]nt easy get shut
+of 'em.")
+
+Leetle (diminutive of little): "I never see one of these here gurt men
+there's s'much talk about in the p[dot above e][dot above a]pers, only
+once, and that was up at Smiffle Show adunnamany years agoo. Prime
+minister, they told me he was, up at Lunnon; a leetle, lear, miserable,
+skinny-looking chap as ever I see [Disraeli, I imagine]. 'Why,' I says,
+'we d[dot above o][dot above a]n't count our minister to be much, but
+he's a deal primer-looking than what yourn be.'"
+
+Loanst (A loan): "Will you lend mother the loanst of a little tea?"
+
+Master (Pronounced Mass). The distinctive title of a married labourer. A
+single man will be called by his Christian name all his life long; but a
+married man, young or old, is "Master" even to his most intimate friend
+and fellow workmen, as long as he can earn his own livelihood; but as
+soon as he becomes past work he turns into "the old gentleman," leaving
+the bread-winner to rank as master of the household. "Master" is quite a
+distinct title from "Mr." which is always pronounced Mus, thus: "Mus"
+Smith is the employer. "Master" Smith is the man he employs. The old
+custom of the wife speaking of her husband as her "master" still lingers
+among elderly people; but both the word and the reasonableness of its
+use are rapidly disappearing in the present generation. It may be
+mentioned here that they say in Sussex that the rosemary will never
+blossom except where "the mistus" is master.
+
+May be and Mayhap (Perhaps). "May be you knows Mass Pilbeam? No!
+d[dot above o][dot above a]n't ye? Well, he was a very sing'lar marn was
+Mass Pilbeam, a very sing'lar marn! He says to he's mistus one day, he
+says, 'tis a long time, says he, sence I've took a holiday--so cardenly,
+nex marnin' he laid abed till purty nigh seven o'clock, and then he
+brackfustes, and then he goos down to the shop and buys fower ounces of
+barca, and he sets hisself down on the maxon, and there he set, and
+there he smoked and smoked and smoked all the whole day long, for, says
+he, 'tis a long time sence I've had a holiday! Ah, he was a very
+sing'lar marn--a very sing'lar marn indeed."
+
+Queer (To puzzle): "It has queered me for a long time to find out who
+that man is; and my mistus she's been quite in a quirk over it. He
+d[dot above o][dot above a]nt seem to be quaint with nobody, and he
+d[dot above o][dot above a]nt seem to have no business, and for all that
+he's always to and thro', to and thro', for everlastin'."
+
+[Sidenote: "MUS REYNOLDS"]
+
+Reynolds ("Mus Reynolds" is the name given to the fox): When I was first
+told that "Muss Reynolds come along last night" he was spoken of so
+intimately that I supposed he must be some old friend, and expressed a
+hope that he had been hospitably received. "He helped hisself," was the
+reply; and thereupon followed the explanation, illustrated by an
+exhibition of mutilated poultry.
+
+Short (Tender): A rat-catcher once told me that he knew many people who
+were in the habit of eating barn-fed rats, and he added, "When they're
+in a pudding you could not tell them from a chick, they eat so short and
+purty."
+
+Shruck (Shrieked): An old woman who was accidentally locked up in a
+church where she was slumbering in a high pew, said, "I shruck till I
+could shruck no longer, but no one comed, so I up and tolled upon the
+bell."
+
+Spannel (To make dirty foot-marks about a floor, as a spaniel dog
+does): "I goos into the kitchen and I says to my mistus, I says ('twas
+of a Saddaday), 'the old sow's hem ornary,' I says. 'Well,' says she,
+'there ain't no call for you to come spanneling about my clean kitchen
+any more for that,' she says; so I goos out and didn't say naun, for you
+can't never make no sense of women-folks of a Saddaday."
+
+Surelye: There are few words more frequently used by Sussex people than
+this. It has no special meaning of its own, but it is added at the end
+of any sentence to which particular emphasis is required to be given.
+
+Tedious (Excessive; very): "I never did see such tedious bad stuff in
+all my life." Mr. Parish might here be supplemented by the remark that
+his definition explains the use of the word by old Walker, as related by
+Nyren, when bowling to Lord Frederick Beauclerk, "Oh," he said, "that
+was tedious near you, my lord."
+
+Unaccountable: A very favourite adjective which does duty on all
+occasions in Sussex. A countryman will scarcely speak three sentences
+without dragging in this word. A friend of mine who had been
+remonstrating with one of his parishioners for abusing the parish clerk
+beyond the bounds of neighbourly expression, received the following
+answer:--"You be quite right, sir; you be quite right. I'd no ought to
+have said what I did, but I d[macron o][macron a]nt mind telling you to
+your head what I've said a many times behind your back.--We've got a
+good shepherd, I says, an axcellent shepherd, but he's got an
+unaccountable bad dog!"
+
+Valiant (Vaillant, French. Stout; well-built): "What did you think of my
+friend who preached last Sunday, Master Piper?" "Ha! he was a valiant
+man; he just did stand over the pulpit! Why you b[macron e][macron a]nt
+nothing at all to him! See what a noble paunch he had!"
+
+[Sidenote: "PAUL PODGAM"]
+
+Yarbs (Herbs): An old man in East Sussex said that many people set much
+store by the doctors, but for his part, he was one for the yarbs, and
+Paul Podgam was what he went by. It was not for some time that it was
+discovered that by Paul Podgam he meant the polypodium fern.
+
+Such are some of the pleasant passages in Mr. Parish's book. In Mr.
+Coker Egerton's _Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_ is an amusing example of
+gender in Sussex. The sun, by the way, is always she or her to the
+Sussex peasant, as to the German savant; but it is not the only
+unexpected feminine in the county. Mr. Egerton gives a conversation in a
+village school, in which the master bids Tommy blow his nose. A little
+later he returns, and asks Tommy why he has not done so. "Please, sir, I
+did blow her, but her wouldn't bide blowed."
+
+[Sidenote: THE SHEPHERD'S PERILS]
+
+In the foregoing examples Mr. Parish has perhaps made the Sussex
+labourer a thought too epigrammatic: a natural tendency in the
+illustrations to such a work. The following narrative of adventure from
+the lips of a South Down shepherd, which is communicated to me by my
+friend, Mr. C. E. Clayton, of Holmbush, is nearer the normal loquacity
+of the type:--"I mind one day I'd been to buy some lambs, and coming
+home in the dark over the bostal, I gets to a field, and I knows there
+was a g[macron e][macron a]t, and I kep' beating the hedge with my stick
+to find the g[macron e][macron a]t, and at last I found 'en, and I goos
+to get over 'en, and 'twas one of these here gurt ponds full of foul
+water I'd mistook for the g[macron e][macron a]t, and so in I went, all
+over my head, and I tumbles out again middlin' sharp, and I slips,
+'cause 'twas so slubby, and in I goos again, and I do think I should ha'
+been drownded if it warn't for my stick, and I was that froughtened, and
+there were some bullocks close by, and I froughtened them splashing
+about and they began to run round, and that froughtened me; and
+there--well, I was all wet through and grabby, and when I got home I
+looked like one of these here water-cress men. But I kep' my pipe in my
+mouth all the time. I didn't lose 'en."
+
+[Sidenote: SUSSEX WORDS IN AMERICA]
+
+The late Mr. F. E. Sawyer, another student of Sussex dialect, has
+remarked on the similarity between Sussex provincialisms and many words
+which we are accustomed to think peculiarly American. One cause may be
+the two hundred Sussex colonists taken over by William Penn, who, as we
+have seen, was at one time Squire of Warminghurst. "In recent years we
+have gathered from the works of American comic writers and others many
+words which at first have been termed 'vulgar Americanisms,' but which,
+on closer examination, have proved to be good old Anglo-Saxon and other
+terms which had dropped out of notice amongst us, but were retained in
+the _New_ World! Take, for instance, two 'Southern words,' (probably
+Sussex) quoted by Ray (1674). _Squirm_:--Artemus Ward describes 'Brother
+Uriah,' of 'the Shakers,' as '_squirming_ liked a speared eel,' and,
+curiously enough, Ray gives 'To _squirm_, to move nimbly about after the
+manner of an eel. It is spoken of eel.' Another word is 'sass' (for
+sauce), also quoted by Artemus Ward.... Mrs. Phoebe Earl Gibbons (an
+American lady), in a clever and instructive article in _Harper's
+Magazine_ on 'English Farmers' (but, in fact, describing the
+agriculture, &c., of Sussex in a very interesting way), considers that
+the peculiarities of the present Sussex dialect resemble those of New
+England more than of Pennsylvania. She mentions as Sussex phrases used
+in New England--'You hadn't ought to do it,' and 'You shouldn't ought';
+'Be you'? for 'Are you'? 'I see him,' for 'I saw.' 'You have a _crock_
+on your nose,' for a smut; _nuther_ for neither; _p[dot above a]ssel_
+for parcel, and a _pucker_ for a fuss. In addition she observes that
+Sussex people speak of 'the _fall_' for autumn and 'guess' and 'reckon'
+like genuine Yankees." So far Mr. Sawyer. Sussex people also, I might
+add, "disremember," as Huck Finn used to do.
+
+I should like to close the list of examples of Sussex speech by quoting
+a few verses from the Sussex version of the "Song of Solomon," which Mr.
+Lower prepared for Prince Lucien Buonaparte some forty years ago. The
+experiment was extended to other southern and western dialects, the
+collection making a little book of curious charm and homeliness. Here
+is the fourth chapter:--
+
+[Sidenote: THE SONG OF SOLOMON]
+
+
+                                  IV
+
+     1. Lookee, you be purty, my love, lookee, you be purty. You've got
+     dove's eyes adin yer locks; yer hair is like a flock of goaets dat
+     appear from Mount Gilead.
+
+     2. Yer teeth be lik a flock of ship just shared, dat come up from
+     de ship-wash; every one of em bears tweens, an nare a one among em
+     is barren.
+
+     3. Yer lips be lik a thread of scarlet, an yer speech is comely;
+     yer temples be lik a bit of a pomgranate adin yer locks.
+
+     4. Yer nick is lik de tower of Daoeved, built for an armoury, what
+     dey heng a thousan bucklers on, all shields of mighty men.
+
+     5. Yer two brestes be lik two young roes, what be tweens, dat feed
+     among de lilies.
+
+     6. Till de dee break, an der shadders goo away, I'll git me to de
+     mountain of myrrh, and to de hill of frankincense.
+
+     7. You be hem purty, my love; der auent a spot in ye.
+
+     8. Come along wud me from Lebanon, my spouse, wud me from Lebanon:
+     look from de top of Amana, from de top of Shenir an Hermon, from de
+     lions' dens, from de mountain of de leopards.
+
+     9. Ye've stole away my heart, my sister, my spouse. Ye've stole
+     away my heart wud one of yer eyes, wud one chain of yer nick.
+
+     10. How fair is yer love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is
+     yer love dan wine! an de smell of yer intments dan all spices.
+
+     11. Yer lips, O my spouse, drap lik de honeycomb; dere's honey an
+     melk under yer tongue; an de smell of yer garments is lik de smell
+     of Lebanon.
+
+     12. A fenced garn is my sister, my spouse, a spring shet up, a
+     fountain seaeled.
+
+     13. Yer plants be an archard of pomegranates wud pleasant fruits,
+     camphire an spikenard.
+
+     14. Spikenard an saffron, calamus an cinnamon, wud all trees of
+     frankincense, myrrh, an allers, wud all de best of spices.
+
+     15. A fountain of garns, a well of livin waters, an straims from
+     Lebanon.
+
+     16. Wake, O north win, an come, ye south; blow upon my garn, dat de
+     spices of it may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garn, an
+     ait his pleasant fruits.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+BEING A POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
+
+
+It almost necessarily follows that in a book such as this, which in
+brief compass attempts to take some account of every interesting or
+charming spot in a large tract of country, there must be certain
+omissions. To the stranger the survey may seem adequate; but it is a
+hundred to one that a reader whose home is in Sussex will detect a
+flippancy or a want of true insight in the treatment of his own village.
+Nor (rightly) does he sit silent under the conviction.
+
+I find that, with the keenest desire to be just in criticism, I have
+been unfair to several villages. I have been unfair, for example, to
+Burpham, which lies between Arundel and Amberley and of which nothing is
+said; and more than one reader has discovered unfairness to East Sussex.
+For this the personal equation is perhaps responsible: a West Sussex
+man, try as he will, cannot have the same enthusiasm for the other side
+of his county as for his own. For me the sun has always seemed to rise
+over Beachy Head, the most easterly of our Downs.
+
+The call for a second edition has however enabled me to set right a few
+errors in the body of the book, and in this additional chapter to
+amplify and fortify here and there. The result must necessarily be
+disconnected; but a glance at the index will point the way to what is
+new.
+
+Concerning Aldworth in Tennyson's poetry (see page 12), there is the
+exquisite stanza to General Hamley:
+
+
+     "You came, and looked, and loved the view
+       Long known and loved by me,
+     Green Sussex fading into blue
+       With one gray glimpse of sea."
+
+
+"Green Sussex fading into blue"--it is the motto for every Down summit,
+South or North.
+
+[Sidenote: SHELLEY AND TRELAWNY]
+
+With reference to Shelley and Sussex, my attention has been drawn to an
+interesting account of Field Place by Mr. Hale White, the author of the
+Mark Rutherford novels, in an old _Macmillan's Magazine_. Says Mr.
+White, "Denne Park [at Horsham] might easily have suggested--more easily
+perhaps than any part of the country near Field Place--the well-known
+semi-chorus in the _Prometheus_ which begins
+
+
+     'The path through which that lovely twain
+     Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,
+     And each dark tree that ever grew
+     Is curtained out from heaven's wide blue.'
+
+
+The _Prometheus_, however, was written when Horsham was well-nigh
+forgotten"--by its author.
+
+Owing to a curious lapse of memory, I omitted to say that Sompting, near
+Worthing, should be famous as the home of Edward John Trelawny, author
+of _The Adventures of a Younger Son_, and the friend of Shelley and
+Byron. In his Sompting garden, in his old age, Trelawny grew figs,
+equal, he said, to those of his dear Italy, and lived again his
+vigorous, picturesque, notable life. Sussex thus owns not only the poet
+of "Adonais," but the friend who rescued his heart from the flames that
+consumed his body on the shores of the Gulf, and bearing it to Rome
+placed over its resting place in the Protestant cemetery the words from
+the _Tempest_ (his own happy choice):--
+
+
+     "Nothing of him that doth fade,
+     But doth suffer a sea-change
+     Into something rich and strange."
+
+
+The old man, powerful and capricious to the last, died at Sompting in
+1881, within a year of ninety. His body was removed to Gotha for
+cremation, and his ashes lie beside Shelley's heart in Rome.
+
+Among the wise men of Lewes I ought not to have overlooked William
+Durrant Cooper (1812-1875), a shrewd Sussex enthusiast and antiquary,
+who as long ago as 1836 printed at his own cost a little glossary of the
+county's provincialisms. The book, publicly printed in 1853, was, of
+course, superseded by Mr. Parish's admirable collection, but Mr. Cooper
+showed the way. One of his examples of the use of the West Sussex
+pronoun _en_, _un_, or _um_ might be noted, especially as it involves
+another quaint confusion of sex. _En_ and _un_ stand for him, her or it;
+_um_ for them. Thus, "a blackbird flew up and her killed 'n"; that is to
+say, he killed it.
+
+[Sidenote: THE ANGEL'S FAN]
+
+Among the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum is the account of a
+supernatural visitation to Rye in 1607. The visitants were angels, their
+fortunate entertainer being a married woman. She, however, by a lapse in
+good breeding, undid whatever good was intended for her. "And after that
+appeared unto her 2 angells in her chamber, and one of them having a
+white fan in her hand did let the same fall; and she stooping to take it
+upp, the angell gave her a box on the eare, rebukinge her that she a
+mortall creature should presume to handle matters appertayninge to
+heavenlie creatures."
+
+[Sidenote: ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON]
+
+It was an error to omit from Chapter XVII all reference to Frederick
+William Robertson--Robertson of Brighton--who from 1847 until 1853
+exerted his extraordinary influence from the pulpit of Trinity Chapel,
+opposite the post-office, and from his home at 9, Montpellier Terrace.
+
+Of Robertson's quickening religion I need not speak; but it is
+interesting to know that much of his magnetic eloquence was the result
+of the meditations which he indulged in his long and feverish rambles
+over the Downs. His favourite walk was to the Dyke (before exploitation
+had come upon it), and he loved also the hills above Rottingdean.
+Robertson, says Arnold's memoir, "would walk any man 'off his legs,' as
+the saying goes. He not only walked; he ran, he leaped, he bounded. He
+walked as fast and as incessantly as Charles Dickens, and, like Dickens,
+his mind was in a state of incessant activity all the time. There was
+not a bird of the air or a flower by the wayside that was not known to
+him. His knowledge of birds would have matched that of the collector of
+the Natural History Museum in his favourite Dyke Road."
+
+Robertson often journeyed into Sussex on little preaching or lecturing
+missions (he found the auditors of Hurstpierpoint "very bucolic"), and
+his family were fond of the retirement of Lindfield. On one occasion
+Robertson brought them back himself, writing afterwards to a friend that
+in that village he "strongly felt the beauty and power of English
+country scenery and life to calm, if not to purify, the hearts of those
+whose lives are habitually subjected to such influences."
+
+Mr. Arnold's book, I might add, has some pleasant pages about Sussex and
+Brighton in Robertson's day, with glimpses of Lady Byron, his ardent
+devotee, and, at Old Shoreham, of Canon Mozley.
+
+And here I might mention that for a very charming account of a still
+earlier Brighton, though not the earliest, the reader should go to a
+little story called _Round About a Brighton Coach Office_, which was
+published a few years ago. It has a very fragrant old-world flavour.
+
+To Chichester, I should have recorded, belongs a Sussex saint, Saint
+Richard, Bishop of Chichester in the thirteenth century, and a great
+man. In 1245 he found the Sussex see an Augaean stable; but he was equal
+to the labour of cleansing it. He deprived the corrupt clergy of their
+benefices with an unhesitating hand, and upon their successors and those
+that remained he imposed laws of comeliness and simplicity. His reforms
+were many and various: he restored hospitality to its high place among
+the duties of rectors; he punished absentees; he excommunicated
+usurers; while (a revolutionist indeed!) priests who spoke indistinctly
+or at too great a pace were suspended. Also, I doubt not, he was hostile
+to locked churches. Furthermore, he advocated the Crusades like another
+Peter the Hermit.
+
+Richard's own life was exquisitely thoughtful and simple. An anecdote of
+his brother, who assisted him in the practical administration of the
+diocese, helps us to this side of his character. "You give away more
+than your income," remarked this almoner-brother one day. "Then sell my
+silver," said Richard, "it will never do for me to drink out of silver
+cups while our Lord is suffering in His poor. Our father drank heartily
+out of common crockery, and so can I. Sell the plate."
+
+Richard penetrated on foot to the uttermost corners of his diocese to
+see that all was well. He took no holiday, but would often stay for a
+while at Tarring, near Worthing, with Simon, the parish priest and his
+great friend. Tradition would have Richard the planter of the first of
+the Tarring figs, and indeed, to my mind, he is more welcome to that
+honour than Saint Thomas a Becket, who competes for the credit--being
+more a Sussex man. In his will Richard left to Sir Simon de Terring
+(sometimes misprinted Ferring) his best palfrey and a commentary on the
+Psalms.
+
+[Sidenote: SAINT RICHARD]
+
+The Bishop died in 1253 and he was at once canonised. To visit his grave
+in the nave of Chichester Cathedral (it is now in the south transept)
+was a sure means to recovery from illness, and it quickly became a place
+of pilgrimage. April 3 was set apart in the calendar as Richard's day,
+and very pleasant must have been the observance in the Chichester
+streets. In 1297 we find Edward I. giving Lovel the harper 6_s._ 6_d._
+for singing the Saint's praises; but Henry VIII. was to change all this.
+On December 14th, 1538, it being, I imagine, a fine day, the Defender of
+the Faith signed a paper ordering Sir William Goring and William Ernely,
+his Commissioners, to repair to Chichester Cathedral and remove "the
+bones, shrine, &c., of a certain Bishop ... which they call S.
+Richard," to the Tower of London. That the Commissioners did their work
+we know from their account for the same, which came to _L_40. In the
+reformed prayer-book, however, Richard's name has been allowed to stand
+among the black letter saints.
+
+[Sidenote: BISHOP WILBERFORCE]
+
+Under Chichester I ought also to have mentioned John William Burgon
+(1813-1888), Dean of Chichester for the last twelve years of his life
+and the author of that admirable collection of half-length
+appreciations, _The Lives of Twelve Good Men_, one of whom, Bishop
+Wilberforce, lived within call at Woollavington, under the shaggy
+escarpment of the Downs some ten miles to the north-east. Dean Burgon
+thus happily touches off the Bishop in his South Down retreat:--
+
+... "But it was on the charms of the pleasant landscape which surrounded
+his Sussex home that he chiefly expatiated on such occasions, leaning
+rather heavily on some trusty arm--(I remember how he leaned on
+_mine_!)--while he tapped with his stick the bole of every favourite
+tree which came in his way (by-the-by, _every_ tree seemed a favourite),
+and had something to tell of its history and surpassing merits. Every
+farm-house, every peep at the distant landscape, every turn in the road,
+suggested some pleasant remark or playful anecdote. He had a word for
+every man, woman, and child he met,--for he knew them all. The very
+cattle were greeted as old acquaintances. And how he did delight in
+discussing the flora of the neighbourhood, the geological formations,
+every aspect of the natural history of the place!"
+
+[Sidenote: BURPHAM AND HARDHAM]
+
+A very properly indignant friend has reminded me of the claims of
+Burpham in the following words. "Two miles up the Arun valley from
+Arundel is Burpham, a pretty village on the west edge of the Downs and
+overhanging the river. Between South Stoke and Arundel the old course of
+the Arun runs in wide curves, and in modern times a straight new bed has
+been cut, under Arundel Park and past the Black Rabbit, making, with the
+old curves, the form of the letter B. Burpham lies at the head of the
+lower loop of the B, and while there is plenty of water in the loop to
+row up with the flood tide and down with the ebb, the straight main
+stream diverts nearly all the holiday traffic and leaves Burpham the
+most peaceful village within fifty miles of London. The seclusion is the
+more complete because the roads from the South end in the village and
+there is no approach by road from East or West or North. The Church
+contains a Lepers' window, and passengers by the railway can see, to the
+right of the red roofs of the village and over the line of low chalk
+cliffs, a white path still called the Lepers' Path, which winds away in
+to the lonely hollows of the Downs.
+
+"A curious feature of Burpham is a high rampart of earth, running
+eastward from the cliff by the river, which according to local tradition
+was constructed in the days of the Danish pirates. It is said to be
+doubtful whether the rampart was erected by the Saxon villagers for
+their own protection, or by the Danes as their first stronghold on the
+rising ground after they had sailed up the Arun from Littlehampton. The
+fine name of the neighbouring Warningcamp Hill, from which there is a
+great outlook over the flat country past Arundel Castle to Chichester
+Cathedral and the cliffs of the Isle of Wight, suggests memories of the
+same period."
+
+Of the little retiring church of St. Botolph, Hardham, lying among low
+meadows between Burpham and Pulborough, I ought also to have spoken, for
+it contains perhaps the earliest complete series of mural painting in
+England. The church dates from the eleventh century, and the paintings,
+says Mr. Philip Mainwaring Johnson, who has studied them with the
+greatest care, cannot be much less old. The subjects are the
+Annunciation, the Nativity, the appearance of the Star, the Magi
+presenting their Gifts, and so forth, with one or two less familiar
+themes added, such as Herod conferring with his Counsellors and the
+Torments of Hell. There are the remains also of a series of Moralities
+drawn from the parable of Dives and Lazarus, and of a series
+illustrating the life of St. George. The little church, which perhaps
+has every right to call itself the oldest picture gallery in England,
+should not be missed by any visitor to Pulborough.
+
+[Sidenote: THE TIPTEERS]
+
+At West Wittering in the Manhood Peninsula, a little village on which
+the sea has hostile designs, is still performed at Christmas a
+time-honoured play the actors of which are half a dozen boys or men
+known as the Tipteers. Their words are not written, but are transmitted
+orally from one generation of players to another. Mr. J. I. C. Boger,
+however, has taken them down for the S. A. C. The subject once again, as
+in some of the Hardham mural paintings, is the life of St. George, here
+called King George; and the play has the same relation to drama that the
+Hardham frescoes have to a picture. I quote a little:--
+
+
+_Third Man--Noble Captain:_
+     In comes I, the Noble Captain,
+     Just lately come from France;
+     With my broad sword and jolly Turk [dirk]
+     I will make King George dance.
+
+_Fourth Man--King George_ [_i.e._, Saint George]:
+     In comes I, King George,
+     That man of courage bold,
+     With my broad sword and sphere [spear]
+     I have won ten tons of gold.
+     I fought the fiery Dragon
+     And brought it to great slaughter,
+     And by that means I wish to win
+     The King of Egypt's daughter.
+     Neither unto thee will I bow nor bend.
+     Stand off! stand off!
+     I will not take you to be my friend.
+
+_Noble Captain:_
+     Why, sir, why, have I done you any kind of wrong?
+
+_King George:_
+     Yes, you saucy man, so get you gone.
+
+_Noble Captain:_
+     You saucy man, you draw my name,
+     You ought to be stabb'd, you saucy man.
+
+_King George:_
+     Stab or stabs, the least is my fear;
+     Point me the place
+     And I will meet you there.
+
+_Noble Captain:_
+     The place I 'point is on the ground
+     And there I will lay your body down
+     Across the water at the hour of five.
+
+_King George:_
+     Done, sir, done! I will meet you there,
+     If I am alive I will cut you, I will slay you,
+     All for to let you know that I am King George over Great Britain O!
+     [FIGHT: _King George wounds the Noble Captain._]
+
+
+Until the close is almost reached the West Wittering Tipteers preserve
+the illusion of mediaeval mummery. But the concluding song transports us
+to the sentiment of the modern music hall. Its chorus runs, with some
+callousness:--
+
+
+     "We never miss a mother till she's gone,
+     Her portrait's all we have to gaze upon,
+         We can fancy see her there,
+         Sitting in an old armchair;
+     We never miss a mother till she's gone."
+
+
+[Sidenote: GRANDMOTHER FOWINGTON]
+
+[Sidenote: THE PHARISEES]
+
+Mark Antony Lower's _Contributions to Literature_, 1845, contains a
+pleasant essay on the South Downs which I overlooked when I was writing
+this book, but from which I now gladly take a few passages. It gives me,
+for example, a pendent to William Blake's description of a fairy's
+funeral on page 64, in the shape of a description of a fairy's revenge,
+from the lips of Master Fowington, a friend of Mr. Lower, who was one
+that believed in Pharisees (as Sussex calls fairies) as readily and
+unreservedly as we believe in wireless telegraphy. Mas' Fowington had,
+indeed, two very good reasons for his credulity. One was that the
+Pharisees are mentioned in the Bible and therefore must exist; the other
+was that his grandmother, "who was a very truthful woman," had seen them
+with her own eyes "time and often." "They was liddle folks not more
+than a foot high, and used to be uncommon fond of dancing. They jound[4]
+hands and formed a circle, and danced upon it till the grass came three
+times as green there as it was anywhere else. That's how these here
+rings come upon the hills. Leastways so they say; but I don't know
+nothing about it, in tye,[5] for I never seen none an 'em; though to be
+sure it's very hard to say how them rings do come, if it is'nt the
+Pharisees that makes 'em. Besides there's our old song that we always
+sing at harvest supper, where it comes in--'We'll drink and dance like
+Pharisees.' Now I should like to know why it's put like that 'ere in the
+song, if it a'nt true."
+
+[Sidenote: MAS' MEPPOM'S ADVENTURE]
+
+Master Fowington's story of the fairy's revenge runs thus:--
+
+"An ol' brother of my wife's gurt gran'mother _see_ some Pharisees once,
+and 'twould a been a power better if so be he hadn't never seen 'em, or
+leastways never offended 'em. I'll tell ye how it happened. Jeems
+Meppom--dat was his nauem--Jeems was a liddle farmer, and used to thresh
+his own corn. His barn stood in a very _elenge_ lonesome place, a
+goodish bit from de house, and de Pharisees used to come dere a nights
+and thresh out some wheat and wuts for him, so dat de hep o' threshed
+corn was ginnerly bigger in de morning dan what he left it overnight.
+Well, ye see, Mas' Meppom thought dis a liddle odd, and didn't know
+rightly what to make ant. So bein' an out-and-out bold chep, dat didn't
+fear man nor devil, as de saying is, he made up his mind dat he'd goo
+over some night to see how 'twas managed. Well accordingly he went out
+rather airly in de evenin', and laid up behind de mow, for a long while,
+till he got rather tired and sleepy, and thought 'twaunt no use a
+watchin' no longer. It was gittin' pretty handy to midnight, and he
+thought how he'd goo home to bed. But jest as he was upon de move he
+heerd a odd sort of a soun' comin' toe-ards the barn, and so he stopped
+to see what it was. He looked out of de strah, and what should he catch
+sight an but a couple of liddle cheps about eighteen inches high or
+dereaway come into de barn without uppening the doores. Dey pulled off
+dere jackets and begun to thresh wud two liddle frails as dey had brung
+wud em at de hem of a rate. Mas' Meppom would a been froughten if dey
+had been bigger, but as dey was such tedious liddle fellers, he couldn't
+hardly help bustin right out a laffin'. Howsonever he pushed a hanful of
+strah into his mouth and so managed to kip quiet a few minutes a lookin'
+at um--thump, thump; thump, thump, as riglar as a clock.
+
+"At last dey got rather tired and left off to rest derselves, and one an
+um said in a liddle squeakin' voice, as it might a bin a mouse a
+talkin':--'I say Puck, I tweat; do you tweat?' At dat Jeems couldn't
+contain hisself no how, but set up a loud haw-haw; and jumpin' up from
+de strah hollered out, 'I'll tweat ye, ye liddle rascals; what bisness a
+you got in my barn?' Well upon dis, de Pharisees picked up der frails
+and cut away right by him, and as dey passed by him he felt sich a queer
+pain in de head as if somebody had gi'en him a lamentable hard thump wud
+a hammer, dat knocked him down as flat as a flounder. How long he laid
+dere he never rightly knowed, but it must a bin a goodish bit, for when
+he come to 'twas gittin' dee-light. He could'nt hardly contrive to
+doddle home, and when he did he looked so tedious bad dat his wife sent
+for de doctor dirackly. But bless ye, _dat_ waunt no use; and old Jeems
+Meppom knowed it well enough. De doctor told him to kip up his sperits,
+beein' 'twas onny a fit he had had from bein' a most smothered wud de
+handful of strah and kippin his laugh down. But Jeems knowed better.
+'T[macron a]-uent no use, sir,' he says, says he, to de doctor; 'de cuss
+of de Pharisees is uppan me, and all de stuff in your shop can't do _me_
+no good.' And Mas' Meppom was right, for about a year ahtawuds he died,
+poor man! sorry enough dat he'd ever intaf[macron e]red wud things dat
+didn't consarn him. Poor ol' feller, he lays buried in de church-aird
+over yender--leastways so I've heerd my wife's mother say, under de
+bank jest where de bed of snow-draps grows."
+
+[Sidenote: FAIRY RINGS AND DEW PONDS]
+
+All who know the Downs must know the fairies' or Pharisees' rings, into
+which one so often steps. Science gives them a fungoid origin, but
+Shakespeare, as well as Master Fowington's grandmother, knew that Oberon
+and Titania's little people alone had the secret. Further proof is to be
+found in the testimony of John Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary, who
+records that Mr. Hart, curate at Yatton Keynel in 1633-4, coming home
+over the Downs one night witnessed with his own eyes an "innumerable
+quantitie of pigmies" dancing round and round and singing, "making all
+manner of small, odd noises."
+
+A word ought to have been said of the quiet and unexpected dew-ponds of
+the Downs, upon which one comes so often and always with a little
+surprise. Perfect rounds they are, reflecting the sky they are so near
+like circular mirrors set in a white frame. Gilbert White, who was
+interested in all interesting things, mentions the unfailing character
+of a little pond near Selborne, which "though never above three feet
+deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, ... yet
+affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least
+twenty head of cattle beside." He then asks, having noticed that in May,
+1775, when the ponds of the valley were dry, the ponds of the hills were
+still "little affected," "have not these elevated pools some unnoticed
+recruits, which in the night-time counterbalance the waste of the day?"
+The answer, which White supplies, is that the hill pools are recruited
+by dew. "Persons," he writes, "that are much abroad, and travel early
+and late, such as shepherds, fishermen, &c., can tell what prodigious
+fogs prevail in the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest part of
+summer; and how much the surfaces of things are drenched by those
+swimming vapours, though, to the senses, all the while, little moisture
+seems to fall."
+
+Kingsley has a passage on the same subject in his essay, "The
+Air-Mothers"--"For on the high chalk downs, you know, where farmers make
+a sheep pond, they never, if they are wise, make it in the valley or on
+a hillside, but on the bleakest top of the very highest down; and there,
+if they can once get it filled with snow and rain in winter, the blessed
+dews of night will keep some water in it all the summer thro', while
+ponds below are utterly dried up." There is, however, another reason why
+the highest points are chosen, and that is that the chalk here often has
+a capping of red clay which holds the water.
+
+[Sidenote: NICK COSSUM'S HUMOUR]
+
+To the smuggling chapter might have been added, again with Mr. Lower's
+assistance, a few words on the difficulties that confronted the London
+revenue officers in the Sussex humour. To be confounded by too swift a
+horse or too agile a "runner" was all in the night's work; but to be
+hoodwinked and bamboozled by the deliberate stealthy southern fun must
+have been eternally galling. The Sussex joker grinds slowly and
+exceeding small; but the flour is his. "There was Nick Cossum the
+blacksmith [the words are a shepherd's, talking to Mr. Lower]; he was a
+sad plague to them. Once he made an exciseman run several miles after
+him, to take away a keg of _yeast_ he was a-carrying to Ditchling!
+Another time as he was a-going up New Bostall, an exciseman, who knew
+him of old, saw him a-carrying a tub of hollands. So he says, says he,
+'Master Cossum, I must have that tub of yours, I reckon!' 'Worse luck, I
+suppose you must,' says Nick in a civil way, 'though it's rather again'
+the grain to be robbed like this; but, however, I am a-going your road,
+and we can walk together--there's no law again' that I expect.' 'Oh,
+certainly not,' says the other, taking of the tub upon his shoulders. So
+they chatted along quite friendly and _chucker_[6] like till they came
+to a cross road, and Nick wished the exciseman good bye. After Nick had
+got a little way, he turned round all of a sudden and called out: 'Oh,
+there's one thing I forgot; here's a little bit o' paper that belongs to
+the keg.' 'Paper,' says the exciseman, 'why, that's a _permit_,' says
+he; 'why didn't you show me that when I took the hollands?' 'Oh,' says
+Nick, as saucy as Hinds, 'why, if I had done that,' says he, 'you
+wouldn't a carried my tub for me all this way, would you?'"
+
+[Sidenote: ANOTHER PARISH CLERK]
+
+The story, at the end of Chapter XIX, of the clerk in Old Shoreham
+church, whose loyalty was too much for his ritualism, may be capped by
+that of a South Down clerk in the east of the county, whose seat in
+church commanded a view of the neighbourhood. During an afternoon
+service one Sunday a violent gale was raging which had already unroofed
+several barns. The time came, says Mr. Lower, for the psalm before the
+sermon, and the clerk rose to announce it. "Let us sing to the praise
+and glo--Please, sir, Mas' Cinderby's mill is blowed down!"
+
+[Sidenote: ANOTHER MILLER]
+
+Another word on Sussex millers. John Oliver, the Hervey of Highdown
+Hill, had a companion in eccentricity in William Coombs of Newhaven,
+who, although active as a miller to the end, was for many years a
+stranger to the inside of his mill owing to a rash statement one night
+that if what he asseverated was not true he would never enter his mill
+again. It was not true and henceforward, until his death, he directed
+his business from the top step--such is the Sussex tenacity of purpose.
+
+Coombs was married at West Dean, but not fortunately. On the way to the
+church a voice from heaven called to him, "Will-yam Coombs! Will-yam
+Coombs! if so be that you marry Mary ---- you'll always be a miserable
+man." Coombs, who had no false shame, often told the tale, adding, "And
+I be a miserable man."
+
+Coombs' inseparable companion was a horse which bore him and his
+merchandise to market. In order to vary the monotony of the animal's own
+God-given hue, he used to paint it different colours, one day yellow and
+the next pink, one day green and the next blue, and so on. But this
+cannot have perplexed the horse so much as his master's idea of mercy;
+for when its back was over-loaded, not only with sacks of flour, but
+also with Coombs, that humanitarian, experiencing a pang of sympathy,
+and exclaiming "The marciful man is marciful to his beast," would lift
+one of the sacks on to his own shoulders. His marcy, however, did not
+extend to dismounting. Our Sussex droll, Andrew Boorde, when he invented
+the wisdom of Gotham, invented also the charity of Coombs. But the story
+is true.
+
+Coombs must not be considered typical of Sussex. Nor can the tricyclist
+of Chailey be called typical of Sussex--the weary man who was overtaken
+by a correspondent of mine on the acclivity called the King's Head Hill,
+toiling up its steepness on a very old-fashioned, solid-tyred tricycle.
+He had the brake hard down, and when this was pointed out to him, he
+replied shrewdly, "Eh master, but her might goo backards." Such
+whimsical excess of caution, such thorough calculation of all the
+chances, is not truly typical, nor is the miller's oddity truly typical;
+and yet if one set forth to find humorous eccentricity, humorous
+suspicion, and humorous cautiousness at their most flourishing, Sussex
+is the county for the search.
+
+[Sidenote: LONDON TO CHICHESTER]
+
+It ought to be known that those Londoners who would care to reach Sussex
+by Roman road have still Stane Street at their service. With a little
+difficulty here and there, a little freedom with other people's land,
+the walker is still able to travel from London to Chichester almost in a
+bee-line, as the Romans used. Stane Street, which is a southern
+continuation of Erming Street, pierced London's wall at Billingsgate,
+and that would therefore be the best starting point. The modern
+traveller would set forth down the Borough High Street (as the
+Canterbury Pilgrims did), crossing the track of Watling Street near the
+Elephant and Castle, and so on the present high road for several not too
+interesting miles; along Newington Butts, and Kennington Park Road, up
+Clapham Rise and Balham Hill, and so on through Tooting, Morden, North
+Cheam, and Ewell. So far all is simple and a little prosaic, but at
+Epsom difficulties begin. The road from Epsom town to the racecourse
+climbs to the east of the Durdans and strikes away south-west, on its
+true course again, exactly at the inn. The point to make for, as
+straight as may be (passing between Ashstead on the right and Langley
+Bottom farm on the left), is the Thirty-acres Barn, right on the site.
+Then direct to Leatherhead Down, through Birchgrove, over Mickleham
+Down, and so to the high road again at Juniper Hall. Part of the track
+on this high ground is still called Erming Street by the country folk;
+part is known as Pebble Lane, where the old Roman road metal has come
+through. The old street probably followed the present road fairly
+closely, with a slight deviation near the Burford Bridge Inn, as far as
+Boxhill Station, whence it took a bee-line to the high ground at
+Minnickwood by Anstiebury, four miles distant, a little to the west of
+Holmwood. This, if the line is to be followed, means some deliberate
+trespassing and a scramble through Dorking churchyard, which is partly
+on the site.
+
+Hitherto the Roman engineer has wavered now and then, but from
+Minnickwood to Tolhurst Farm, fifteen miles to the south, the line is
+absolute. Two miles below Ockley (where it is called Stone Street), at
+Halehouse Farm, the road must be left again, but after three miles of
+footpath, field, and wood we hit it once more just above Dedisham, on
+the road between Guildford and Horsham, and keep it all the way to
+Pulborough, through Billingshurst, thus named, as I have said, like
+Billingsgate, after Belinus, Stane Street's engineer. At Pulborough we
+must cut across country to the camp by Hardham, over water meadows that
+are too often flooded, and thence, through other fields, arable and
+pasture, to the hostel on Bignor Hill, which once was Stane Street;
+passing on the right Mr. Tupper's farm and the field which contains the
+famous Bignor pavements, relic of the palatial residence of the Governor
+of the Province of Regnum in the Romans' day; or better still, pausing
+there, as Roman officers faring to Regnum certainly would in the hope of
+a cup of Falernian.
+
+The track winding up Bignor Hill is still easily recognisable, and from
+the summit half Sussex is visible: the flat blue weald in the north,
+Blackdown's dark escarpment in the north-west, Arundel's shaggy wastes
+in the east, the sea and the plain in the south, and the rolling turf of
+the downs all around. Henceforward the road is again straight, nine
+unfaltering miles to Chichester, which we enter by St. Pancras and East
+Street. For the first four miles, however, the track is over turf and
+among woods, Eartham Wood on the right and North Wood on the left, and,
+after a very brief spell of hard road again, over the side of Halnaker
+Down. But from Halnaker to Chichester it is turnpike once more, with the
+savour of the Channel meeting one all the way, and Chichester's spire a
+friendly beacon and earnest of the contiguous delights of the Dolphin,
+where one may sup in an assembly room spacious enough to hold a Roman
+century.
+
+[Sidenote: BY ROMAN ROAD]
+
+Or one might reverse the order and walk out of Sussex into London by the
+Roman way, or, better still, through London, and on by Erming Street to
+the wall of Antoninus. Merely to walk to London and there stop is
+nothing; merely to walk from London is little; but to walk through
+London ... there is glamour in that! To come bravely up from the sea at
+Bosham, through Chichester, over the Downs to the sweet domestic
+peaceful green weald, over the Downs again and plunge into the grey city
+(perhaps at night) and out again on the other side into the green again,
+and so to the north, _left-right_, _left-right_, just as the clanking
+Romans did; that would be worth doing and worth feeling.
+
+[Sidenote: JOHN HORNE]
+
+The best knower of Sussex of recent times has died since this book was
+printed: one who knew her footpaths and spinneys, her hills and farms,
+as a scholar knows his library. John Horne of Brighton was his name: a
+tall, powerful man even in his old age--he was above eighty at his
+death--with a wise, shrewd head stored with old Sussex memories: hunting
+triumphs; the savour of long, solitary shooting days accompanied by a
+muzzle-loader and single dog--such days as Knox describes in Chapter V;
+historic cricket matches; stories of the Sussex oddities, the
+long-headed country lawyers, the Quaker autocrats, the wild farmers, the
+eccentric squires; characters of favourite horses and dogs (such was the
+mobility of his countenance and his instinct for drama that he could
+bring before you visibly any animal he described); early railway days
+(he had ridden in the first train that ran between Brighton and
+Southwick); fierce struggles over rights-of-way; reminiscences of old
+Brighton before a hundredth part of its present streets were made; and
+all the other body of curious lore for which one must go to those whose
+minds dwell much in the past. Coming of Quaker stock, as he did, his
+memory was good and well-ordered, and his observation quick and sound.
+What he saw he saw, and he had the unusual gift of vivid precise
+narrative and a choice of words that a literary man should envy.
+
+A favourite topic of conversation between us was the best foot route
+between two given points--such as Steyning and Worthing, for example, or
+Lewes and Shoreham. Seated in his little room, with its half-a-dozen
+sporting prints on the wall and a scene or two of old Brighton, he
+would, with infinite detail, removing all possibility of mistake,
+describe the itinerary, weighing the merits of alternative paths with
+profound solemnity, and proving the wisdom of every departure from the
+more obvious track. Were Sussex obliterated by a tidal wave, and were a
+new county to be constructed on the old lines, John Horne could have
+done it.
+
+[Sidenote: A SUSSEX ENTHUSIAST]
+
+Of his talk I found it impossible to tire, and I shall never cease to
+regret that circumstances latterly made visits to him very infrequent.
+Towards the end his faculties now and then were a little dimmed; but the
+occlusion carried compensation with it. To sit with an old man and,
+being mistaken by him for one's own grandfather, to be addressed as
+though half a century had rolled away, is an experience that I would not
+miss.
+
+To the end John Horne dressed as the country gentlemen of his young days
+had dressed; he might have stepped out of one of Alken's pictures, for
+he possessed also the well nourished complexion, the full forehead, and
+the slight fringe of whiskers which distinguished Alken's merry
+sportsmen. His business taking him deep into the county among the farms,
+he was always in walking trim, with an umbrella crooked over one arm,
+his other hand grasping the obtuse-angled handle of a ground-ash stick.
+These sticks, of which he had scores, he cut himself, his eye never
+losing its vigilance as he passed through a copse. Under the handle,
+about an inch from the end, he screwed a steel peg, so that the stick,
+when it was not required, might hang upon his arm; while a long, stout
+pin, with a flat brass head, was also inserted, in case his pipe needed
+cleaning out. Thus furnished, with umbrella and stick, pipe and a sample
+of his merchandise, John Horne, in his wide collar, his ample coat with
+vast pockets over the hips, his tight trousers, and his early-Victorian
+headgear, has been, these fifty years, a familiar figure in the Weald as
+he passed from farm to farm at a steady gait, his interested glances
+falling this way and that, noting every change (and perhaps a little
+resenting it, for he was of the old Tory school), and his genial
+salutation ready for all acquaintances. But he is now no more, and
+Sussex is the poorer, and the historian of Sussex poorer still. I
+believe he would have liked this book; but how he would have shaken his
+wise head over its omissions!
+
+[Illustration: MAP OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] This is the Sussex preterite of the verb "to join."
+
+[5] _In tye_--not I.
+
+[6] _Chucker_; in a cheerful, cordial manner.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+a Becket, Thomas, 156, 238
+
+Ainsworth, W. H., 27
+
+Albourne, 204
+
+Alciston, 271
+
+Aldrington, 184
+
+Aldworth, 11, 418
+
+Alexander, Mr. W. C., 308
+
+Alexander of Russia, 316
+
+Alfriston, 266, 273
+
+Almshouses, 38, 227
+
+Amberley, 26, 84
+
+Amberstone, 316
+
+Angels at Rye, 419
+
+Angmering, 83
+
+Ann of Cleves, 247
+
+Architecture, 401
+
+Ardingly, 220
+
+Arundel, 68
+
+Ashburnham, 356
+
+Ashdown Forest, 301, 402
+
+Ashington, 150
+
+
+B
+
+Balcombe, 221
+
+Barton, Bernard, 51
+
+Battle Abbey, 7, 348
+
+Battle of Lewes, 245
+
+Bayham Abbey, 395
+
+Beachy Head, 321
+
+Beddingham, 264
+
+Beer, 152, 257, 383, 400
+
+Beldham, William, 74
+
+Belloc, Mr. Hilaire, 72, 152
+
+Bells, 216, 368, 399
+
+Berwick, 271
+
+Bevis of Southampton, 56, 70
+
+Bexhill, 347
+
+Bignor, 108
+
+"Big on Little," 230
+
+Billingshurst, 120
+
+Birling Gap, 325
+
+Bishopstone tide mills, 263
+
+Black, William, 173
+
+Blackdown, 11
+
+Blake, William, 64
+
+Blunt, Mr. W. S., 222
+
+Bodiam, 378
+
+Bognor, 61
+
+Bolney, 216
+
+Book-borrowing, 377
+
+Booth Museum, 175
+
+Borde, Andrew, 214, 332
+
+Borrer, William, the botanist, 133
+
+---- ---- the ornithologist, 90, 132, 133, 182, 194.
+
+Bosham, 54
+
+Bowls, 248
+
+Boxgrove, 41
+
+Bramber, 27, 139
+
+Brambletye House, 229
+
+Bramston, James, 106
+
+Brede, 374
+
+Brightling, 380
+
+Brighton, 81, 160, 419
+
+"Brighton," a poem, 167
+
+Broadbridge, James, 107
+
+Brown of Brighton, 52
+
+Browne, Sir Anthony, 47
+
+Buckhurst, 400
+
+Buncton Chapel, 150
+
+Burgess, John, 209
+
+Burgon, Dean, 422
+
+Burne-Jones, Sir E., 178
+
+Burpham, 422
+
+Burrell, Timothy, 211
+
+Burton, Dr., 289
+
+Burton Park, 107
+
+Burton, West, 110
+
+Burwash, 278, 382
+
+Burwash, Henry, 386
+
+Bury, 111
+
+Bustards, 194
+
+Butler, James, 151
+
+Buxted, 297
+
+Byron, Lord, 167
+
+
+C
+
+Cade, Jack, 309
+
+Camber Castle, 360
+
+Canute, 55
+
+Capel, Edward, 342
+
+Cary, C. F., 76
+
+Caryll, John, 17, 20, 28, 130
+
+---- Lady Mary, 17
+
+Catt, William, 260
+
+"Cenotaph of Lord Darnley," 40
+
+Chailey, 236
+
+Chanctonbury Ring, 146
+
+Charles II., 26, 169
+
+Charlotte, Princess, 61
+
+Charlton, 44
+
+Chichester, 33, 420
+
+Chiddingly, 314
+
+Chidham, 56
+
+Chithurst, 11
+
+Chowne, Thomas, 267
+
+Christ's Hospital, 122
+
+Churches locked, 299
+
+Cissbury, 154
+
+Clapham, 81
+
+Clayton, Mr. C. E., 413
+
+Climping, 76
+
+Cobbett, William, 15, 101, 120, 175, 231
+
+Cobden, Richard, 21
+
+Coleridge, S. T., 76
+
+Collins, Stanton, 273
+
+---- William, 12, 28
+
+Coombs, Master, 430
+
+Cooper, W. D., 419
+
+Copley, Anthony, 6
+
+Cotton, Reynell, 119
+
+Covert Family, 217
+
+Cowdray, 3, 6, 7
+
+Cowfold, 131
+
+Cowper, William, 42
+
+Crabbet, 221
+
+Crane, Stephen, 374
+
+Crawley, 218
+
+Cricket, 74, 81, 103, 132, 165, 235, 268, 384
+
+Crowborough, 301
+
+Crowhurst, 357
+
+Cuckfield, 211, 248
+
+Cuckoo, The, 311
+
+Culloden, 371
+
+Cuthman, Saint, 135
+
+
+D
+
+Dacres, The, 307, 337
+
+Dale Park House, 72
+
+Dalmon, Mr. C. W., 117
+
+Danish vessel, 379
+
+Danny, 200
+
+Darby, Parson, 323
+
+D'Arcy, Penelope, 87
+
+Death presages, 305, 326
+
+Dedisham, 119
+
+Deer, 297
+
+Defoe, Daniel, 8, 285
+
+De Montfort, Simon, 235, 245
+
+"Denis Duval," 363
+
+Devil in Sussex, 195, 303
+
+Devil's Dyke, 192
+
+Devonshire, Duke of, 318, 331
+
+De Warenne, William, 243
+
+Dew ponds, 428
+
+Dialect, 405
+
+Diaries, 200, 204, 211, 233, 305, 313, 397
+
+Dickens, Charles, 171
+
+Dinners, 213
+
+Ditchling, 208
+
+Donkey race, 385
+
+Dorset, Sixth Earl of, 398
+
+---- Mrs., 110
+
+---- Parson, 110
+
+Downs, The, 2, 23, 258
+
+Drayton, Michael, 124
+
+Drewitts, The, 9
+
+"Duckings," 401
+
+Dudeney, John, 236
+
+Duelling, 386
+
+Duncton, 107
+
+Dunstan, Saint, 303
+
+
+E
+
+Eartham, 42
+
+Easebourne, 21
+
+Eastbourne, 318
+
+East Dean, 325
+
+East Grinstead, 227
+
+East Hoathly, 312
+
+East Mascalls, 219
+
+Egerton, J. E. Coker, 382
+
+Egremont, Earl of, 32, 99
+
+Eld, Lieut.-Col., 169
+
+Electioneering, 141, 188, 262
+
+Elizabeth, Queen, 4, 303, 366, 379, 395
+
+Ellman, John, 282
+
+Elsted, 20
+
+Epitaphs, 82, 103, 107, 111, 134, 169, 188, 198, 219, 245, 249,
+         250, 285, 294, 304, 312, 333, 344, 371, 398
+
+Eridge, 393
+
+Etchingham, 387
+
+
+F
+
+Fairies, 425
+
+Fairy rings, 426, 428
+
+Felpham, 62
+
+Fernhurst, 10
+
+Ferring, 75
+
+Field Place, 115
+
+Fig gardens, 156
+
+Figs, 156
+
+Findon, 152
+
+Fireworks, 252
+
+Firle, 264
+
+Fishbourne, 54
+
+Fish culture, 201
+
+Fishermen, 173
+
+Fittleworth, 94
+
+Flaxman, Anna, 65
+
+Fletching, 235
+
+Folk-lore, 76
+
+Ford, 77
+
+Forest Row, 403
+
+Fowington, Master, 425
+
+Framfield, 293
+
+Frewen Family, 379
+
+Friston, 326
+
+Fulking, 197
+
+Fuller, Thomas, 70, 84, 125, 133, 147, 180, 237, 267, 351, 386
+
+---- Jack, 380
+
+Furniture-hunters, 143
+
+
+G
+
+Gage Family, 264
+
+Gale, Leonard, 222
+
+---- Walter, 305
+
+George IV., 67, 162, 164, 170, 240, 383, 387
+
+Gibbets, 209
+
+Gibbon, Edward, 235
+
+Gilchrist, Alexander, 66
+
+Gipsy queen, 195
+
+Glynde, 281
+
+Godwin, Earl, 55
+
+Goodwood, 39, 40
+
+Gordon, Mr. H. D., 17
+
+Goring, 78
+
+Goring Family, 146
+
+Graffham, 21
+
+Gravetye, 230
+
+Gunn, Martha, 164
+
+
+H
+
+Hailsham, 316
+
+Halland, 313
+
+Halnaker, 40
+
+Hampnett, West, 40
+
+Hand Cross, 218
+
+Hanging in chains, 9
+
+Hangleton, 196
+
+Hardham, 423
+
+Hardham, John, 30
+
+Hare, Julius, 336
+
+Harmer, Sylvan, 308
+
+Harold, 55, 243, 351
+
+Hartfield, 403
+
+Harting, South, 16
+
+Harvest home, 343
+
+Hastings, 340
+
+Hawker, R. S., 274
+
+Hayward's Heath, 211
+
+Hay, William, 281
+
+Hayley, William, 42, 62
+
+Hazlitt, William, 100, 168
+
+Headless Horseman, The, 129
+
+Heathfield, 296, 307
+
+Heathfield, Lord, 308
+
+Henfield, 132
+
+Henley, 9
+
+Henley, W. E., 158, 190
+
+Herons, 88
+
+Heron's Ghyll, 299
+
+Hessel, Phoebe, 170
+
+Hickstead Place, 204
+
+Highdown Hill, 79
+
+Hitchener, Miss, 116
+
+Hogge, Ralph, 297
+
+Hole, Mr. W. G., 25
+
+Holinshed, 360
+
+Hollington Rural, 345
+
+"Hollow Ways," 278
+
+Horne, John, of Brighton, 434
+
+Hops, 293
+
+Horsfield, T. W., 61, 83, 103, 216, 217, 230, 236, 249, 256,
+                 262, 292, 319, 320, 325, 346
+
+Horsham, 6, 112
+
+---- Stone, 113
+
+Horsted Keynes, 233
+
+Hotham, Sir Richard, 61
+
+Hotspur, Kate, 13
+
+Hove, 184
+
+Hubert of Bosham, 55
+
+Hudson, Mr. W. H., 33, 181
+
+Hurdis, Rev. James, 263, 385
+
+Hurstmonceux, 334
+
+Hurstpierpoint, 200
+
+Hutchinson, Mr. Horace, 278, 323
+
+
+I
+
+Icklesham, 370
+
+Iden, 372
+
+Iden, Alexander, 309
+
+_Idlehurst_, 220, 241, 384
+
+Iford, 257
+
+Ironworks, 124, 221, 298, 396
+
+Isfield, 292
+
+
+J
+
+Jackson, Cyril, 67
+
+James, Mr. Henry, 369
+
+Jeakes, The, 366
+
+Jefferays, The, 315
+
+Jefferies, Richard, 78, 174, 302, 321, 324, 382, 401
+
+Jennings, Louis, 137
+
+Johnson, Dr., 8, 171, 250
+
+---- Thomas, 46
+
+Juxon, Archbishop, 30, 264
+
+
+K
+
+Kimber, John, 236
+
+Kingly Bottom, 51
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 428
+
+Kipling, Mr., 2, 178
+
+Kirdford, 120
+
+Knepp, 131
+
+Knox, A. E., 14, 48, 59, 88, 102, 107, 182, 216
+
+
+L
+
+Lade, Sir John, 387
+
+Lamb, Charles, 124, 345
+
+Lamberhurst, 396
+
+Lambert, Mr. Clem, 256
+
+Lang, Mr. Andrew, 225
+
+La Thangue, Mr. H. H., 21
+
+Laughton, 314
+
+Lavington, West, 21
+
+Leonardslee, 124
+
+Leslie, C. R., 32, 99
+
+Letter-writing, 321
+
+Lewes, 239, 351
+
+Lillywhite, F. W., 40, 166
+
+Lindfield, 219, 420
+
+Littlehampton, 75
+
+_Lives of Twelve Good Men_, 422
+
+Locker-Lampson, F., 224
+
+Lodsworth, 22
+
+Long Man, The, 271
+
+Lovers' Seat, 346
+
+Lower, Mark Antony, 38, 70, 154, 214, 260, 296, 304, 315, 380, 414, 425
+
+Loxwood, 120
+
+Lullington, 268
+
+Lunsford, Col., 312
+
+Lurgashall, 106
+
+
+M
+
+Madehurst, 72
+
+Malling Deanery, 238
+
+Manhood Peninsula, 56
+
+Mann, Noah, 103
+
+Manning, Cardinal, 21
+
+Marchant, Thomas, 200
+
+Marden, East, 52
+
+Maresfield, 296
+
+Markland, Jeremiah, 295
+
+Marley, 11
+
+Marriott-Watson, Mrs., 259
+
+Martello towers, 320
+
+Martyrs, 229, 253
+
+Mascall, Leonard, 236
+
+Mayfield, 303, 402
+
+Medicine, 205, 268
+
+Meredith, Mr. George, 392
+
+Michelham Priory, 316
+
+Midhurst, 3, 20
+
+Milland, 11
+
+Millers, 79, 430
+
+Mills, 80
+
+Montagu, Viscounts, 4, 6, 7, 21
+
+Moore, Giles, 233
+
+Mortimer, John Hamilton, 319
+
+Motor cars, 269
+
+Mount Caburn, 280
+
+Mud, 285
+
+Muntham, 152
+
+Mural paintings, 423
+
+
+N
+
+Names, 296, 333
+
+Neale, John Mason, 227
+
+Nelond, Thomas, 131
+
+Newbery, Francis, 308, 310
+
+Newcombe, Thomas, 94
+
+Newhaven, 260
+
+"Newhaven Tipper," 249
+
+Newick, 235
+
+Newland, Richard, 74
+
+Newtimber, 197
+
+Nightingales, 129, 290
+
+Ninfield, 356
+
+Norfolk, Duke of, 69
+
+Northiam, 378
+
+November 5th, 250
+
+Nyren, John, 74, 104, 119, 412
+
+
+O
+
+Oakendene, 132
+
+Oates, Titus, 341
+
+Oatmeal pudding, 205
+
+"Old Squire, The," a poem, 223
+
+Oliver, John, 79
+
+"On the Downs," a poem, 259
+
+"On the South Coast," 187
+
+Opie, Mrs., 63
+
+Ospreys, 216
+
+Otway, Thomas, 13
+
+Ovingdean, 177
+
+Owls at Arundel, 70
+
+Oxen, 289
+
+Oxenbridge Family, 371, 374
+
+
+P
+
+Paget, Charles, 82, 88
+
+Pagham, 59, 61
+
+Paine, Tom, 247
+
+Palmer, Lady, 83
+
+Parham, 86
+
+Parish, Mr. W. D., 195, 265, 406
+
+Parish clerks, 191, 430
+
+Patcham, 198
+
+Patching, 81
+
+Paul, Saint, 77
+
+Peasmarsh, 372
+
+Pelham, Joan, 321
+
+---- Sir Nicholas, 245, 312
+
+Pelling, Thomas, 177
+
+Penn, William, 151, 284
+
+Percy Family, 97
+
+Pett, 370
+
+Petworth, 22, 91, 96, 100, 290
+
+Pevensey, 328
+
+Piddinghoe, 257
+
+Pitt, William, 171
+
+Plaistow, 120
+
+Plashetts, 291
+
+Playden, 371
+
+Plumpton, 236
+
+Pluralism in Sussex, 154
+
+Politics, 383
+
+_Poly-Olbion_, 125
+
+Pope, Alexander, 130, 398
+
+Portslade, 186
+
+Portus Adurni, 186
+
+Pottery, 175, 369
+
+Powlett, Captain, 129, 131
+
+Poynings, 196
+
+Poyntz, Mr., 8
+
+Pressing to death, 114
+
+Preston, 75, 199
+
+Pronunciation, 265
+
+Pulborough, 94
+
+Pun, A costly, 55
+
+Puritan names, 296
+
+Pyecombe, 198
+
+
+Q
+
+Quakers, 316
+
+Queen of the Gipsies, 195
+
+
+R
+
+Racton, 26
+
+Ravens at Petworth, 102
+
+Realf, Richard, 293
+
+Rewell Wood, 72
+
+Richard, Saint, 420
+
+Rickman, "Clio," 248
+
+---- Nathaniel, 316
+
+"Ride to Church, The," a ballad, 286
+
+Ringmer, 284
+
+Roads in Sussex, 290
+
+Robertsbridge, 376
+
+Robertson of Brighton, 419
+
+Robinson, Mr. William, 230
+
+Rocks, 295, 230, 395
+
+Rodmell, 256
+
+Rogate, 16
+
+Roman pavements, 109
+
+Romans, The, 25, 34, 109, 207, 330
+
+Romney, 43
+
+Roper, Squire, 44
+
+Rother, at Midhurst, 20
+
+Rotherfield, 302
+
+Rottingdean, 178
+
+Rowfant, 224
+
+Rudgwick, 119
+
+Rushington, 75
+
+Russell, Dr., 161
+
+Rye, 358, 419
+
+
+S
+
+Sackville College, 227
+
+---- Family, 397
+
+Saddlescombe, 197
+
+St. Leonards Forest, 123
+
+Saint Richard, 420
+
+Salehurst, 378
+
+Salvington, 154
+
+Sawyer, F. E., 413
+
+Saxons, The, 25, 330, 405
+
+Saxonbury, 394
+
+Seaford, 262
+
+Selden, John, 154
+
+Selmeston, 265
+
+Selsey Bill, 57
+
+Selwyn Monument, 326
+
+Serpent of St. Leonards Forest, 126
+
+Shakespeare, 13, 308, 321
+
+Sheep, 283
+
+Sheffield Park, 235
+
+Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 115, 418
+
+---- Sir John, 82
+
+---- William, 82
+
+Shirleys, The, 147
+
+Shooting, Knox's description of, 48
+
+Shoreham, New, 186
+
+---- Old, 191
+
+"Shoreham River," a poem, 190
+
+Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 341
+
+Shulbrede Priory, 11
+
+Shurley Family, 292
+
+Sidlesham, 57
+
+"Silly Sussex," 384
+
+Single lines, 3
+
+Singleton, 44, 46
+
+Slaugham, 217
+
+Slaughter Common, 311
+
+Slinfold, 118
+
+Smith, Charlotte, 110
+
+---- George, 29
+
+---- Horace, 167
+
+---- Sidney, 169, 174
+
+Smoaker, 164
+
+Smuggling, 273, 429
+
+Sompting, 159
+
+"Song against Speed," 269
+
+"Song of Solomon," 414
+
+"Sops and Ale," 320
+
+"South County, The," a poem, 72
+
+Southease, 257
+
+South Harting, 16
+
+Southover, 247
+
+Southwick, 186
+
+Spencer, Herbert, 173
+
+Spershott, James, 36
+
+Springett, Sir Herbert, 286
+
+Stane Street, 40, 119, 120, 431
+
+Stapleton, Thomas, 133
+
+Stapley, Richard, 204
+
+Steyning, 135
+
+Stogton, 52
+
+Stopham, 94
+
+Storrington, 90
+
+Stott, Mr. Edward, 85
+
+Stoughton, 52
+
+Superstitions, 305, 382
+
+"Sussex," a poem, 178
+
+Sussex character, 383, 429, 431, 433
+
+_Sussex Daily News_, 215
+
+"Sussex Drinking-Song," 152
+
+_Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_, 315, 382, 413
+
+"Sussex Nurse, The," 117
+
+Swift, Dean, 375
+
+Swinburne, Mr. A. C., 187, 190, 322
+
+
+T
+
+Tarring, 156, 421
+
+Tattersall, Captain, 27, 169
+
+Taylor, John, 78, 180, 320
+
+Telham Hill, 348
+
+Telscombe, 257
+
+Tennyson, Lord, 12, 418
+
+Thackeray, W. M., 363
+
+Tillington, 102
+
+Tipper, Thomas, 249
+
+Tipteers, 424
+
+Titmice, 226
+
+"To all you Ladies," 398
+
+"To a Seaman," 322
+
+Trelawny, 418
+
+Trespassing, 394
+
+Treyford, 20
+
+Trotton, 12
+
+_True and Wonderful_, 126
+
+Truffles, 83
+
+"Trugs," 339
+
+Tunbridge Wells, 303, 390
+
+Tupper, Mr., 109
+
+Turner, J. M. W., 355, 381
+
+---- Thomas, 313
+
+Twineham, 204
+
+Twyne, Thomas, 250
+
+
+U
+
+Uckfield, 295
+
+Udimore, 374
+
+Up-Park, 16
+
+
+V
+
+Verdley Castle, 11
+
+Vere, Aubrey de, 12
+
+
+W
+
+Wadhurst, 389
+
+Wagers, 388
+
+Walking craze, 218
+
+Walpole, Horace, 338, 376
+
+Warbleton, 311
+
+Warminghurst, 151
+
+Warnham, 120
+
+Washington, 151
+
+Waylett, John, 399
+
+Webster, Sir Godfrey, 262
+
+Wesley, John, 59, 365
+
+Westbourne, 52
+
+West Grinstead, 130
+
+Westham, 332
+
+West Hoathly, 230
+
+Westons, The, 362
+
+West Wittering, 424
+
+Wheatears, 180
+
+Whistler, Rev. Webster, 342
+
+White, Gilbert, 18, 24, 290, 428
+
+Wickliffe, John, 305
+
+Wilberforce, Bishop, 422
+
+---- William, 141
+
+Wildflowers, 302
+
+Wilfred, Saint, 58
+
+Wilkie, David, 32
+
+William IV., 191
+
+William the Conqueror, 320, 348
+
+Wills, Sussex, 215
+
+Wilmington, 271
+
+Winchelsea, 358
+
+Wiston, 147
+
+Witchcraft, 19
+
+Withyham, 397
+
+Wolstonbury, 199
+
+Woodman, Richard, 253, 311
+
+Woolbeding, 21
+
+Worth, 222
+
+Worthing, 158
+
+
+Y
+
+Young, Arthur, 22, 283
+
+
+THE END
+
+PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BUNGAY,
+SUFFOLK.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+
+THE HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS SERIES.
+
+Extra crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net each.
+
+
+London. By Mrs. E. T. COOK.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON and FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_GRAPHIC._--"Mrs. Cook is an admirable guide; she knows her London in
+and out; she is equally at home in writing of Mayfair and of City
+courts, and she has a wealth of knowledge relating to literally and
+historical associations. This, taken together with the fact that she is
+a writer who could not be dull if she tried, makes her book very
+delightful reading."
+
+
+Middlesex. By WALTER JERROLD.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_EVENING STANDARD._--"Every Londoner who wishes to multiply fourfold the
+interest of his roamings and excursions should beg, borrow, or buy it
+without a day's delay."
+
+
+Hertfordshire. By HERBERT W. TOMPKINS, F.R.Hist.S.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_WESTMINSTER GAZETTE._--"A very charming book.... Will delight equally
+the artistic and the poetic, the historical and the antiquarian, the
+picturesque and the sentimental kinds of tourist."
+
+
+Buckinghamshire. By CLEMENT SHORTER.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_WORLD._--"A thoroughly delightful little volume. Mr. Frederick L.
+Griggs contributes a copious series of delicately graceful
+illustrations."
+
+
+Surrey. By ERIC PARKER.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_SPECTATOR._--"A very charming book, both to dip into and to read....
+Every page is sown with something rare and curious."
+
+
+Kent. By WALTER JERROLD.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"A book over which it is a pleasure to pore, and
+which everyman of Kent or Kentish Man, or 'foreigner,' should promptly
+steal, purchase, or borrow.... The illustrations alone are worth twice
+the money charged for the book."
+
+
+Sussex. By E. V. LUCAS.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_WESTMINSTER GAZETTE._--"A delightful addition to an excellent
+series.... Mr. Lucas's knowledge of Sussex is shown in so many fields,
+with so abundant and yet so natural a flow, that one is kept entertained
+and charmed through every passage of his devious progress."
+
+
+Berkshire. By JAMES EDMUND VINCENT.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_DAILY CHRONICLE._--"We consider this book one of the best in an
+admirable series, and one which should appeal to all who love this kind
+of literature."
+
+
+Oxford and the Cotswolds. By H. A. EVANS.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"The author is everywhere entertaining and fresh,
+never allowing his own interest to flag, and thereby retaining the close
+attention of the reader."
+
+
+Shakespeare's Country. By the Ven. W. H. HUTTON.
+
+With Illustrations by EDMUND H. NEW.
+
+_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"Mr. Edmund H. New has made a fine book a thing of
+beauty and a joy for ever by a series of lovely drawings."
+
+
+Hampshire. By D. H. MOUTRAY READ.
+
+With Illustrations by ARTHUR B. CONNOR.
+
+_STANDARD._--"In our judgement, as excellent and lively a book as has
+yet appeared in the Highways and Byways Series."
+
+
+Dorset. By Sir FREDERICK TREVES.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL.
+
+_STANDARD._--"A breezy, delightful, book, full of sidelights on men and
+manners, and quick in the interpretation of all the half-inarticulate
+lore of the countryside."
+
+
+Wiltshire. By EDWARD HUTTON.
+
+With Illustrations by NELLY ERICHSEN.
+
+_DAILY GRAPHIC._--"Replete with enjoyable and informing reading....
+Illustrated by exquisite sketches."
+
+
+Somerset. By EDWARD HUTTON.
+
+With Illustrations by NELLY ERICHSEN.
+
+_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"A book which will set the heart of every
+West-country-man beating with enthusiasm, and with pride for the goodly
+heritage into which he has been born as a son of Somerset."
+
+
+Devon and Cornwall. By ARTHUR H. NORWAY.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL and HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_DAILY CHRONICLE._--"So delightful that we would gladly fill columns
+with extracts were space as elastic as imagination.... The text is
+excellent; the illustrations of it are even better."
+
+
+South Wales. By A. G. BRADLEY.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_SPECTATOR._--"Mr. Bradley has certainly exalted the writing of a
+combined archaeological and descriptive guide-book into a species of
+literary art. The result is fascinating."
+
+
+North Wales. By A. G. BRADLEY.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON and JOSEPH PENNELL.
+
+_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"To read this fine book makes us eager to visit
+every hill and every valley that Mr. Bradley describes with such
+tantalising enthusiasm. It is a work of inspiration, vivid, sparkling,
+and eloquent--a deep well of pleasure to every lover of Wales."
+
+
+Cambridge and Ely. By Rev. EDWARD CONYBEARE.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_ATHENAEUM._--"A volume which, light and easily read as it is, deserves
+to rank with the best literature about the county."
+
+
+East Anglia. By WILLIAM A. DUTT.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL.
+
+_WORLD._--"Of all the fascinating volumes in the 'Highways and Byways'
+series, none is more pleasant to read.... Mr. Dutt, himself an East
+Anglian, writes most sympathetically and in picturesque style of the
+district."
+
+
+Lincolnshire. By W. F. RAWNSLEY.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"A splendid record of a storied shire."
+
+
+Nottinghamshire. By J. B. FIRTH.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"A book that will rank high in the series which it
+augments; a book that no student of our Midland topography and of
+Midland associations should miss."
+
+
+Northamptonshire and Rutland. By HERBERT A. EVANS.
+
+With Illustrations by FREDERICK L. GRIGGS.
+
+_TIMES._--"A pleasant, gossiping record.... Mr. Evans is a guide who
+makes us want to see for ourselves the places he has seen."
+
+
+Derbyshire. By J. B. FIRTH.
+
+With Illustrations by NELLY ERICHSEN.
+
+_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"The result is altogether delightful, for
+'Derbyshire' is attractive to the reader in his arm-chair as to the
+tourist wandering amid the scenes Mr. Firth describes so well."
+
+
+Yorkshire. By ARTHUR H. NORWAY.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL and HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--"The wonderful story of Yorkshire's past provides
+Mr. Norway with a wealth of interesting material, which he has used
+judiciously and well; each grey ruin of castle and abbey he has
+re-erected and re-peopled in the most delightful way. A better guide and
+story teller it would be hard to find."
+
+
+Lake District. By A. G. BRADLEY.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL.
+
+_ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE._--"A notable edition--an engaging volume, packed
+with the best of all possible guidance for tourists. For the most part
+the artist's work is as exquisite as anything of the kind he has done."
+
+
+Northumbria. By P. ANDERSON GRAHAM.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_NATION._--"None of the contributors to the series has been more
+successful than Mr. Graham."
+
+
+The Border. By ANDREW LANG and JOHN LANG.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_STANDARD._--"The reader on his travels, real or imaginary, could not
+have pleasenter or more profitable companionship. There are charming
+sketches by Mr. Hugh Thomson to illustrate the letterpress."
+
+
+Galloway and Carrick. By the Rev. C. H. DICK.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_SATURDAY REVIEW._--"The very book to take with one into that romantic
+angle of Scotland, which lies well aside of the beaten tourist track."
+
+
+Donegal and Antrim. By STEPHEN GWYNN.
+
+With Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON.
+
+_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--"A perfect book of its kind, on which author,
+artist, and publisher have lavished of their best."
+
+
+Normandy. By PERCY DEARMER, M.A.
+
+With Illustrations by JOSEPH PENNELL.
+
+_ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE._--"A charming book.... Mr. Dearmer is as arrestive
+in his way as Mr. Pennell. He has the true topographical eye. He handles
+legend and history in entertaining fashion."
+
+
+MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Highways & Byways in Sussex, by E.V. Lucas
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHWAYS & BYWAYS IN SUSSEX ***
+
+***** This file should be named 20696.txt or 20696.zip *****
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