Part 10 (2/2)

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 Suss.e.x, 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 Suss.e.x village far from the rail and the noise of the world, with the Downs within hail, and fine spa.r.s.ely-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 s.h.i.+llings 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.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 pa.s.sing, 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 Suss.e.x, at any rate, cannot require them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 sh.o.r.e 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 Suss.e.x, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _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 cl.u.s.tering 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.

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