Part 9 (1/2)
A local proverb says that if you eat winkles in March it is as good as a dose of medicine; which reminds me that Suss.e.x has many wise sayings of its own. Here is a piece of Suss.e.x 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 Suss.e.x man eats roast veal and gooseberry pudding. A Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x. How close this brings us here in Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x 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 ant.i.thesis of Climping) was found one day by accident in a bed of nettles.
[Sidenote: JEFFERIES IN SUSs.e.x]
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 Sh.e.l.ley, 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 Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x Woods” in _The Life of the Fields_; ”Sunny Brighton” in _The Open Air_, and ”The Country-Side, Suss.e.x” 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 Suss.e.x 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 unsurpa.s.sed.
John Taylor, the water poet, has a doggerel narrative ent.i.tled ”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 Suss.e.x 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 sh.o.r.e?
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 a.s.sur'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 _a.s.s_-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 _Rus.h.i.+ngton_, By _Little-Hampton_ and by _Middleton_.
[Sidenote: THE MILLER AND SWEET DEATH]