XXVII A HILL POEM 259 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 pale stubble shines with golden gleam The silver ploughshare cleaves its hard-won way The slow black oxen toiling through the day From dawning dusk and chill To twilight grey. Far off the pearly sheep Along the upland steep Follow their shepherd from the wattled fold, Listen-now and again if the night be still enow, 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 Dark on the darkened fells The Roman watch-fires glow 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. CH. XXVII 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. 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, 262 THE PRICE OF TWO VOTES CHAP. "Give us yer hand, sir, I love ye, I love ye," but, he added, "I'm danged if I beant afeared of ye, though." 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." 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 £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 A XXVII SEAFORD TO LEWES 263 Horsfield, "was struck-the money paid-the votes given as promised; and the election over, the old lady gave the two men £30 a piece, and pocketed the rest for the good of her country." 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. Near Tarring Neville. |