Part 2 (1/2)
_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 G.o.d 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 bra.s.s 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 Suss.e.x_, published in 1849, is one of the few books worthy to stand beside White's _Natural History of Selborne_. In Suss.e.x, 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 pa.s.sage which refers at once to his home and to his att.i.tude 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 pa.s.s to and fro near my window; for it a.s.sures 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 ent.i.tle it.”
[Sidenote: COBBETT LOOKS AT THE SQUIRE]
One more literary a.s.sociation: 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sing 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 Suss.e.x--South Harting. Cool and s.p.a.cious 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 s.h.i.+p, the White Hart (a favourite Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x, both without and within. Unlike most of the county's spires, South Harting's is slate and red s.h.i.+ngle, 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 Suss.e.x are not.
In the churchyard, beneath a shed, are the remains of two tombs, with rec.u.mbent 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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 succ.u.mbed 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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 pa.s.senger 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 Suss.e.x 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 __3 10_s._ to 50_s._ for the month.