Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 34

"1750. I found the greatest part of the school in a flow, by reason of the snow and rain coming through the leads. The following extempore verse I set for a copy:--

Abandon every evil thought For they to judgment will be brought.

In pa.s.sing the Star I met with Mr. Eastwood; we went in and spent 2_d._ apiece.

[Sidenote: PRESAGES OF DEATH]

"I went to Mr. Sawyer's.... One of his daughters said that she expected a change in the weather as she had last night dreamt of a deceased person." The editor remarks that this superst.i.tion still lingers (or did fifty years ago) in the Weald of Suss.e.x. Walter Gale adds:--"I told them in discourse that on Thursday last the town clock was heard to strike 3 in the afternoon twice, once before the chimes went, and a 2nd time pretty nearly a 1/4 of an hour after.... The strikes at the 2nd striking seemed to sound very dull and mournfully; this, together with the crickets coming to the house at Laughton just at our coming away, I look upon to be sure presages of my sister's death."

A year later:--"My mother, to my great unhappiness, died in the 83rd year of her age, agreeable to the testimony I had of a death in our family on the 10th of May last."

"Mr. Rogers came to the school, and brought with him the four volumes of _Pamela_, for which I paed him 4_s._ 6_d._, and bespoke Duck's _Poems_ for Mr. Kine, and a _Caution to Swearers_ for myself.

"Sunday. I went to church at Hothley. Text from St. Matthew 'Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed,' and I went to Jones', where I spent 2_d._, and there came Thomas Cornwall, and treated me with a pint of twopenny.

"Mr. James Kine came; we smoaked a pipe together and we went and took a survey of the fair; we went to a legerdemain show, which we saw with tolerable approbation.

"May 28th. Gave attendance at a cricket-match, played between the gamesters at Burwash and Mayfield to the advantage of the latter."

[Sidenote: OLD KENT]

A series of quarrels with old Kent occupy much of the diary. Old Kent, it seems, used to enter the school house and vilify the master, not, I imagine, without cause. Thus:--"He again called me upstart, runagate, beggarly dog, clinched his fist in my face, and made a motion to strike me, and declared he would break my head. He did not strike me, but withdrew in a wonderful heat, and ended all with his general maxim, 'The greater scholler, the greater rogue!'"

Mr. Gale was removed from the school in 1771 for neglecting his duties.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

HEATHFIELD AND THE "LIES."

The two Heathfields--Heathfield Park--"Hefful" Fair and the spring--The death of Jack Cade--Warbleton's martyr--Three "lies"

and all true--An ecclesiastical confection--The bloodthirsty Colonel Lunsford--Halland--Tarble Down--Breeches Wood--Mr. Thomas Turner's diary--Laughton--Chiddingly's inhospitable fane--The Jefferay cheese--A devoted campanologist--h.e.l.lingly--Hailsham.

There are two Heathfields: the old village, with its pleasant Suss.e.x church and ancient cottages close to the park gates; and the new brick and slate town that has gathered round the station and the natural gas-works. The park lies between the two, remarkable among Suss.e.x parks for the variety of its trees and the unusual proportion of them. The s.p.a.cious lawns which are characteristic of the parks in the south, here, on Heathfield's sandy undulations, give place to heather, fern and trees. I never remember to have seen a richer contrast of greens than in early spring, looking west from the house, between the ma.s.ses of dark evergreens that had borne the rigours of the winter and the young leaves just breaking through. Heathfield's park is, I think, the loveliest in Suss.e.x, lying as it does on a southern slope, with its opulence of foliage, its many rus.h.i.+ng burns (the source of the Cuckmere), its hidden ravines and deep silent tarns, and its wonderful view of the Downs and the sea. The park once belonged to the Dacres of Hurstmonceaux, whom we are about to meet. Traces of the original house, dating probably from Henry VII.'s reign, are still to be seen in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Upon this foundation was imposed a new building towards the end of the seventeenth century. The park was then known as Bailey Park. A century later, George Augustus Eliott (afterwards Lord Heathfield), the hero of Gibraltar, and earlier of Cuba, acquired it with his Havana prize money. After Lord Heathfield died, in 1790, the park became the property of Francis Newbery, son of the bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard. The present owner, Mr. Alexander, has added greatly to the house.

[Sidenote: GIBRALTAR TOWER]

Gibraltar Tower, on the highest point of the park, was built by Newbery in honour of his predecessor. From its summit a vast prospect is visible, and forty churches, it is said, may be counted. I saw but few of these. In the east, similarly elevated, is seen the Brightling Needle. Mr. Alexander has gathered together in the tower a number of souvenirs of old English life which make it a Lewes Castle museum in little. Here are stocks, horn gla.s.ses, drinking vessels, rushlight holders, leather bottels, and one of those quaint wooden machines for teaching babies to walk. An old ma.n.u.script history of the tower, in Mr.

Alexander's possession, contains at least one pa.s.sage that is perhaps worth noting, as it may help to clear up any confusion that exists in connection with Lord Heathfield's marriage. "The lady to whom his lords.h.i.+p meant to be united," says the historian, "and who would certainly have been his wife had not death stepped in, is the sister of a lady of whom his lords.h.i.+p was extremely fond, but she, dying about ten years ago, he transferred his affections to the other, who is about thirty-five years of age."

A Heathfield worthy of a hundred years ago was Sylvan Harmer, chiefly a stone cutter (he cut the stone for the tower), but also the modeller in clay of some very ingenious and pretty bas-relief designs for funeral urns, notably a group known as Charity.

[Sidenote: JACK CADE]

The following scene from _The Second Part of Henry VI._ although Shakespeare places it in Kent, belongs to a little hamlet known as Cade Street, close to Heathfield:--

Scene X.--Kent. IDEN'S _Garden._

_Enter_ CADE.

_Cade._ Fie on ambition! fie on myself; that have a sword, and yet am ready to famis.h.!.+ These five days have I hid me in these woods, and durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now am I so hungry, that if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick-wall have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat gra.s.s, or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot weather. And, I think, this word sallet was born to do me good: for, many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill; and, many a time, when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath served me instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and now the word sallet must serve me to feed on.

_Enter_ IDEN, _with Servants, behind._

_Iden._ Lord! who would live turmoiled in the court, And may enjoy such quiet walks as these!

This small inheritance, my father left me, Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.

I seek not to wax great by others' waning; Or gather wealth I care not with what envy: Sufficeth that I have maintains my state, And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.

_Cade._ Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king by carrying my head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.

_Iden._ Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be, I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?

Is't not enough, to break into my garden, And like a thief to come to rob my grounds, Climbing my walls in spite of me, the owner, But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?

_Cade._ Brave thee? ay, by the best blood that ever was broached, and beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men; and if I do not leave you all as dead as a door-nail, I pray G.o.d I may never eat gra.s.s more.

_Iden._ Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands, That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent, Took odds to combat a poor famished man.

Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine, See if thou canst outface me with thy looks: Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser; Thy hand is but a finger to my fist; Thy leg a stick, compared with this truncheon; My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast; And if mine arm be heaved in the air, Thy grave is digged already in the earth.

As for words, whose greatness answers words, Let this my sword report what speech forbears.

_Cade._ By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard.--Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech Jove on my knees, thou mayest be turned to hobnails. [_They fight._ CADE _falls_.] O! I am slain. Famine, and no other, hath slain me: let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden; and be henceforth a burying-place to all that do dwell in this house, because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.

_Iden._ Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?

Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed, And hang thee o'er my tomb, when I am dead: Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point, But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat, To emblaze the honour that thy master got.

_Cade._ Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine, not by valour.

[_Dies._

[Sidenote: THE DEATH OF CADE]

That was on July 12, 1450. Cade did not die at once, but on the way to London, whither he was conveyed in a cart. On the 16th his body was drawn and quartered and dragged through London on a hurdle. One quarter was then sent to Blackheath; the other three to Norwich, Gloucester and Salisbury. Cade's head was set up on London Bridge. Iden was knighted. A pillar was erected at Cade Street by Newbery on the piece of land that he possessed nearest to the probable scene of the event. "Near this spot was slain the notorious rebel Jack Cade, by Alexander Iden, Esq.," is the inscription.

Slaughter Common, near Heathfield, is said to be the scene of a more wholesale carnage, Heathfield people claiming that there Caedwalla in 635 fought the Saxons and killed Eadwine, king of Northumbria. Sylvan Harmer, in his ma.n.u.script history of Heathfield, is determined that Heathfield shall have the credit of the fray, but, as a matter of fact, if Slaughter Common really took its name from a battle it was a very different one, for Caedwalla and Eadwine met, not at Heathfield, but Hatfield Chase, near Doncaster.

[Sidenote: HEFFUL CUCKOO FAIR]

It is at Hefful Cuckoo fair on April 14--Hefful being Suss.e.x for Heathfield--that, tradition states, the old woman lets the cuckoo out of her basket and starts him on his course through the summer months. A local story tells of a Heathfield man who had a quarrel with his wife and left for Ditchling. After some days he returned, remarking, "I've had enough of furrin parts--nothing like old England yet."

If any one, walking from Heathfield towards Burwash, is astonished to find a "Railway Inn," let him spend no time in seeking a station, for there is none within some miles. This inn was once "The Labour in Vain,"

with a signboard representing two men hard at work scrubbing a n.i.g.g.e.r till the white should gleam through. Then came a scheme to run a line to Eastbourne, midway between the present Heathfield line and the Burwash line, and enterprise dictated the changing of the sign to one more in keeping with the times. The railway project was abandoned but the inn retains its new style.

Warbleton, a village in the iron country, two miles south of Heathfield, is famous for its a.s.sociation with Richard Woodman, the Suss.e.x martyr, who is mentioned in an earlier chapter. His house and foundry were hard by the churchyard. The wonderful door in the church tower, a miracle of intricate bolts and ma.s.sive strength, has been attributed to Woodman's mechanical skill; and the theory has been put forward that he made this door for his own strong room, and it was afterwards moved to the church.

Another story says that he was imprisoned in the church tower before being taken for trial. Warbleton has the following terse and confident epitaph upon Ann North, wife of the vicar, who died in 1780:--