XXX

OXEN OF THE HILLS

And, promptly, though 'twas sabbath tide,

"Three cheers for squire-Hooray!" they cried. . . .
Such was Sir Herbert Springett's ride.

Sad is the sequel, sad but true-
For while in sermon-time a few
Deep snores resounded from the pew

Reserved for squire, by others there
The tenth commandment (men declare)
Was being broken past repair:

For, thinking how they had to roam
Through weary wastes of sodden loam
Ere they could win to fire and home,

In spite of parson's fervid knocks
Upon his cushion orthodox,

They "coveted their neighbour's ox."

289

Oxen are now rarely seen on the Sussex roads, but on the hill sides a few of the farmers still plough with them; and may it be long before the old custom is abandoned! There is no pleasanter or more peaceful sight than-looking upthat of a wide-horned team of black oxen, smoking a little in the morning air, drawing the plough through the earth, while the ploughman whistles, and the ox-herd, goad in hand, utters his Saxon grunts of incitement or reproof. The black oxen of the hills are of Welsh stock, the true Sussex ox being red. The "kews," as their shoes are called, may still be seen on the walls of a smithy here and there. Shoeing oxen is no joke, since to protect the smith from their horns they have to be thrown down; their necks are held by a pitchfork, and their feet tied together.

Sussex roads were terrible until comparatively recent times. An old rhyme credits "Sowseks" with "dirt and myre," and Dr. Burton, the author of the Iter Sussexiensis, humorously found in it a reason why Sussex people and beasts had such long legs. "Come now, my friend," he wrote, in Greek, "I will set before

U

290

ROUGH ROADS

CHAP.

you a sort of problem in Aristotle's fashion :-Why is it that the oxen, the swine, the women, and all other animals, are so long legged in Sussex? May it be from the difficulty of pulling the feet out of so much mud by the strength of the ankle, that the muscles get stretched, as it were, and the bones lengthened?"

When, in 1703, the King of Spain visited the Duke of Somerset at Petworth he had the greatest difficulty in getting here. One of his attendants has put on record the perils of the journey: :- "We set out at six o'clock in the morning (at Portsmouth) to go to Petworth, and did not get out of the coaches, save only when we were overturned or stuck fast in the mire, till we arrived at our journey's end. 'Twas hard service for the prince to sit fourteen hours in the coach that day, without eating anything, and passing through the worst ways that I ever saw in my life: we were thrown but once indeed in going, but both our coach which was leading, and his highness's body coach, would have suffered very often, if the nimble boors of Sussex had not frequently poised it, or supported it with their shoulders, from Godalming almost to Petworth; and the nearer we approached the duke's, the more inaccessible it seemed to be. The last nine miles of the way cost six hours time to conquer."

To return to Ringmer, it was there that Gilbert White studied the tortoise (see Letter xiii of The Natural History of Selborne). The house where he stayed still stands, and the rookery still exists. "These rooks," wrote the naturalist, "retire every morning all the winter from this rookery, where they only call by the way, as they are going to roost in deep woods; at the dawn of day they always revisit their nest-trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that act, as it were, as their harbingers." An intermediate owner of the house where Gilbert White resided, which then belonged to his aunt Rebecca Snooke, ordered all nightingales to be shot, on the ground that they kept him awake.

XXX

PLASHETTS

291

While at Ringmet, if a glimpse of very rich park land is needed, it would be worth while to walk three miles north to Plashetts, which combines a vast tract of wood with a small park notable at once for its trees, its brake fern, its lakes, and its water fowl. But if one would gain it by rail, Isfield is the station.

CHAPTER XXXI

UCKFIELD AND BUXTED

The Crowborough district-Isfield-Another model wife-FramfieldThe poet Realf-Uckfield-The Maresfield rocks-Puritan names in Sussex-Buxted park-Heron's Ghyll—A perfect church.

UCKFIELD, on the line from Lewes to Tunbridge Wells, is our true starting point for the high sandy and rocky district of Crowborough, Rotherfield and Mayfield; but we must visit on the way Isfield, a very pretty village on the Ouse and its Iron River tributary. Isfield is remarkable for the remains of Isfield Place, once the home of the Shurleys (connected only by marriage with the Shirleys of Wiston). The house can never have been so fine as Slaugham Place, but it is evident that abundance. also reigned here, as there. Over the main door was the motto "Non minor est virtus quam querere parta tueri," which Horsfield translates "Catch is a good dog, but Hold-fast is a better." In the Shurley chapel, which is one of the sweetest spots in Sussex, are brasses and monuments to the family, notably the canopied altar tomb to Sir John Shurley, who died in 1631, his two wives (Jane Shirley of Wiston and Dorothy Bowyer, née Goring, of Cuckfield) and nine children, who kneel prettily. in a row at the foot. Of these children it is said in the inscription that some" were called into Heaven and the others into several marriages of good quality"; while of Dorothy Shurley it is prettily recorded (this, as we have seen, being a district rich in exemplary wives) that she had "a merite beyond most of her time, . . . her pitty was the clothing of the poore . . . and all

CH. XXXI

FRAMFIELD

293

her minutes were but steppes to heaven." Our county has many fine monuments, but I think that this is the most charming of all.

At Framfield, two miles east of Uckfield, which we may take here, we again enter the iron country, and for the first time see Sussex hops, which are grown largely to the north and east of this neighbourhood.

Framfield has a Tudor church and no particular interest. In 1792 eleven out of fifteen persons in Framfield, whose

united ages amounted to one thousand and thirty-four years, offered, through the county paper, to play a cricket match with an equal number of the same age from any part of Sussex ; but I do not find any record of the result. Nor can I find that any one at Framfield is proud of the fact that here, in 1834, was born Richard Realf, the orator and poet, son of Sussex peasants. In England his name is scarcely known; and in America, where his work was done, it is not common knowledge that he was by birth and parentage English. Realf was the