Part 6 (1/2)

”And then the woodc.o.c.k-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 woodc.o.c.ks, 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 woodc.o.c.ks to crown the bag.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 WOODc.o.c.k]

”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 c.o.c.k 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 woodc.o.c.k. 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 woodc.o.c.ks, 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 compa.s.sed the destruction of all the hares in the county, or a.s.sisted 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 Suss.e.x, 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 a.s.sociated 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 Superst.i.tion'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 Hamps.h.i.+re 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 b.a.l.l.s, 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 Hamps.h.i.+re border, and its a.s.sociation 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 n.o.blest work of G.o.d.

If Pope's a.s.sertion be from error clear, One of G.o.d's n.o.blest works lies buried here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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.