<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
<h3>LITTLEHAMPTON</h3>
<blockquote><p>A children's paradise—Wind-swept villages—Cary and
Coleridge—Sussex folklore—Climping—Richard Jefferies and
Sussex—John Taylor the Water Poet—Highdown Hill—A miller in love
with death—A digression on mills and millers—Treason at
Patching—A wife in a thousand—A Sussex truffler—The Palmer
triplets.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Littlehampton is favoured in having both sea and river. It also has
lawns between the houses and the beach, as at Dieppe, and is as nearly a
children's paradise as exists. The sea at low tide recedes almost beyond
the reach of the ordinary paddler, which is as it should be except for
those that would swim. A harbour, a pier, a lighthouse, a windmill—all
these are within a few yards of each other. On the neighbouring beach,
springing from the stones, you find the yellow-horned poppy, beautiful
both in flower and leaf, and the delicate tamarisk makes a natural hedge
parallel with the sea, to Worthing on the one side, and to Bognor on the
other.</p>
<p>The little villages in the flats behind the eastern tamarisk
hedge—Rustington, Preston, Ferring, are, in summer, veritable sun
traps, with their white walls dazzling in radiance. Such trees as grow
about here all bow to the north-east, bent to that posture by the
prevailing south-west winds. A Sussex man, on the hills or south of
them, lost at night, has but to ascertain the outline of a tree, and he
may get his bearings. If he cannot see so much as that he has but to
feel the bark for lichen, which grows on the north east, or lee, side.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></SPAN></span>It was at Littlehampton in September, 1817, that Coleridge met Cary, the
translator of Dante. Cary was walking on the beach, reciting Homer to
his son. Up came a noticeable man with large grey eyes: "Sir, yours is a
face I should know. I am Samuel Taylor Coleridge."</p>
<div class="sidenote">A CHURCH DUEL</div>
<p>The county paper for February 27, 1796, has this paragraph: "On Monday
last a duel was fought betwixt Mr. R——n and Lieut. B——y, both of
Littlehampton, in a field near that place, which, after the discharge of
each a pistol, terminated without bloodshed. The dispute, we understand,
originated about a pew in the parish church."</p>
<p>A local proverb says that if you eat winkles in March it is as good as a
dose of medicine; which reminds me that Sussex has many wise sayings of
its own. Here is a piece of Sussex counsel in connection with the
roaring month:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">If from fleas you would be free,</div>
<div>On the first of March let all your windows closed be.</div>
</div></div>
<p>I quote two other rhymes:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>If you would wish your bees to thrive</div>
<div>Gold must be paid for every hive;</div>
<div>For when they're bought with other money</div>
<div>There will be neither swarm nor honey.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The first butterfly you see,</div>
<div>Cut off his head across your knee,</div>
<div>Bury the head under a stone</div>
<div>And a lot of money will be your own.</div>
</div></div>
<p>On Whit Sunday the devout Sussex man eats roast veal and gooseberry
pudding. A Sussex child born on Sunday can neither be hanged nor
drowned.</p>
<div class="sidenote">"CLIMPING FOR PERFECTION"</div>
<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></SPAN></span> 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 4¼ 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 Sussex to
excel that; while in general architectural attraction the building is of
the richest. It is also a curiously homely and ingratiating church.</p>
<p>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 Sussex. How close this brings us here in Sussex to
the Bible story!"</p>
<p>At Baylies Court, now a farmhouse, the Benedictine monks of Seez, also
protégés of Robert de Montgomerie, had their chapel, remains of which
are still to be seen.</p>
<p>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 Sussex Coursing Club, who
find that the terrified Climping hare gives satisfaction beyond most in
the county.</p>
<p>Of Ford, north of Climping, there is nothing to say, except that popular
rumour has it that its minute and uninteresting<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></SPAN></span> church (the antithesis
of Climping) was found one day by accident in a bed of nettles.</p>
<div class="sidenote">JEFFERIES IN SUSSEX</div>
<p>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 Shelley, grandfather
of the poet; and in the village died, in 1887, Richard Jefferies, author
of <i>The Story of My Heart</i>, after a life of ill-health spent in the
service of nature. Many beautiful and sympathetic descriptions of Sussex
are scattered about in Jefferies' books of essays, notably, "To
Brighton," "The South Down Shepherd," and "The Breeze on Beachy Head" in
<i>Nature near London</i>; "Clematis Lane," "Nature near Brighton," "Sea, Sky
and Down," and "January in the Sussex Woods" in <i>The Life of the
Fields</i>; "Sunny Brighton" in <i>The Open Air</i>, and "The Country-Side,
Sussex" and "Buckhurst Park" in <i>Field and Hedgerow</i>. Jefferies had a
way of blending experiences and concealing the names of places, which
makes it difficult to know exactly what part of Sussex 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 unsurpassed.</p>
<p>John Taylor, the water poet, has a doggerel narrative entitled "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 <i>Eothen</i>:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>Who in their fury nip'd and skip'd so hotly,</div>
<div>That all our skins were almost turned to motley.</div>
</div></div>
<div class="sidenote">JOHN TAYLOR AND THE CONSTABLE</div>
<p>Taylor gives us in the same record a pleasant picture of the Sussex
constable in 1623:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>The night before a Constable there came,</div>
<div>Who asked my trade, my dwelling, and my name,</div>
<div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></SPAN></span>My businesse, and a troupe of questions more,</div>
<div>And wherefore we did land vpon that shore?</div>
<div>To whom I fram'd my answers true and fit,</div>
<div>(According to his plenteous want of wit)</div>
<div>But were my words all true or if I ly'd</div>
<div>With neither I could get him satisfi'd.</div>
<div>He ask'd if we were Pyrats? We said No,</div>
<div>(<i>As if we had we would haue told him so</i>)</div>
<div>He said that Lords sometimes would enterprise</div>
<div>T' escape and leaue the Kingdome in disguise:</div>
<div>But I assur'd him on my honest word</div>
<div>That I was no disguisèd Knight or Lord.</div>
<div>He told me then that I must goe sixe miles</div>
<div>T' a Justice there, Sir John or else Sir Giles:</div>
<div>I told him I was lothe to goe so farre,</div>
<div>And he told me he would my journey barre.</div>
<div>Thus what with Fleas and with the seuerall prates</div>
<div>Of th' officer, and his <i>Ass</i>-sociats</div>
<div>We arose to goe, but Fortune bade us stay:</div>
<div>The Constable had stolne our oares away,</div>
<div>And borne them thence a quarter of a mile</div>
<div>Quite through a Lane beyond a gate and stile;</div>
<div>And hid them there to hinder my depart,</div>
<div>For which I wish'd him hang'd with all my heart.</div>
<div>A plowman (for us) found our Oares againe,</div>
<div>Within a field well fil'd with Barley Graine.</div>
<div>Then madly, gladly, out to sea we thrust,</div>
<div>'Gainst windes and stormes, and many a churlish Gust,</div>
<div>By <i>Kingston</i> Chappelle and by <i>Rushington</i>,</div>
<div>By <i>Little-Hampton</i> and by <i>Middleton</i>.</div>
</div></div>
<div class="sidenote">THE MILLER AND SWEET DEATH</div>
<p>Highdown, above Goring, is a good hill in itself, conical in shape, as a
hill should be according to the exacting ideas of childhood, with a
sweeping view of the coast and the Channel; but its fame as a resort of
holiday makers comes less from its position and height than from the
circumstance that John Oliver is buried upon it. John Oliver was the
miller of Highdown Hill. When not grinding corn he seems to have busied
himself with thoughts upon the necessary end of all things, to such an
extent that his meditations on the subject gradually became<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></SPAN></span> a mania.
His coffin was made while he was still a young man, and it remained
under his bed until its time was ripe, fitted—to bring it to a point of
preparedness unusual even with the Chinese, those masters of
anticipatory obsequies—with wheels, which the miller, I doubt not,
regularly oiled. John Oliver did not stop there. Having his coffin
comfortably at hand, he proceeded to erect his tomb. This was built in
1766, with tedious verses upon it from the miller's pen; while in an
alcove near the tomb was a mechanical arrangement of death's-heads which
might keep the miller's thoughts from straying, when, as with Dr.
Johnson's philosopher, cheerfulness would creep in.</p>
<p>The miller lived in the company of his coffin, his tomb, and his
<i>mementi mori</i>, until 1793, when at the age of eighty-four his hopes
were realised. Those who love death die old.</p>
<p>Between two and three thousand persons attended the funeral; no one was
permitted to wear any but gay clothes; and the funeral sermon was read
by a little girl of twelve, from the text, Micah vii. 8, 9.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A DIGRESSION ON MILLS</div>
<p>The mill of John Oliver has vanished, nothing but a depression in the
turf now indicating where its foundations stood. Too many Sussex
windmills have disappeared. Clayton still has her twain, landmarks for
many miles—I have seen them on exceptionally clear days from the
Kentish hills—and other windmills are scattered over the county; but
many more than now exist have ceased to be, victims of the power of
steam. There is probably no contrast æsthetically more to the
disadvantage of the modern substitute than that of the steam mill of
to-day with the windmill of yesterday. The steam mill is always ugly,
always dusty, always noisy, usually in a town. The windmill stands high
and white, a thing of life and radiance and delicate beauty, surrounded
by grass, in communion with the heavens. Such noise as it has is
elemental, justifiable, like a ship's cordage in a gale. No one would
paint a steam mill; a picture with a windmill can hardly be a failure.
Constable, who knew everything about<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></SPAN></span> the magic of windmills, painted
several in Sussex—one even at Brighton.</p>
<p>Brighton now has but one mill. There used to be many: one in the West
Hill road, a comelier landmark than the stucco Congregational tower that
has taken its place close by and serves as the town's sentinel from
almost every point of approach. In 1797 a miller near Brighton
anticipated American enterprise by moving his mill bodily to a place two
miles distant by the help of eighty oxen.</p>
<p>Another weakness of steam mills is that they are apparently without
millers—at least there is no unmistakable dominating presence in a
white hat, to whom one can confidently apply the definite article, as in
the mill on the hill. Millers' men there are in plenty, but the miller
is lacking. This is because steam mills belong to companies. Thus, with
the passing of the windmill we lose also the miller, that notable figure
in English life and tradition; always jolly, if the old songs are true;
often eccentric, as the story of John Oliver has shown; and usually a
character, as becomes one who lives by the four winds, or by water—for
the miller of tradition was often found in a water-mill too. The
water-miller's empire has been threatened less than that of the
windmill, for there is no sudden cessation of water power as of wind
power. Sussex still has many water-mills—cool and splashing homes of
peaceful bustle. Long may they endure.</p>
<p>Highdown Hill has other associations. In 1812 the Gentlemen of the Weald
met the Gentlemen of the Sea-coast at cricket on its dividing summit.
The game, which was for one hundred guineas, was a very close thing, the
Gentlemen of the Weald winning by only seven runs. Among the Gentlemen
of the Sea-coast was Mr. Osbaldeston, while the principal Gentleman of
the Weald was Mr. E. H. Budd.</p>
<p>A mile north of Highdown Hill, in a thickly wooded country, are Patching
and Clapham; Patching celebrated for its pond, which washes the
high-road to Arundel, and Clapham for its<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></SPAN></span> woods. Three hundred and more
years ago Patching Copse was the scene of a treasonable meeting between
William Shelley, an ancestor of the poet, one branch of whose family
long held Michelgrove (where Henry VIII. was entertained by our
plotter's grandfather), and Charles Paget: sturdy Roman Catholics both,
who thus sought each other out, on the night of September 16, 1583, to
confer as to the possibility of invading England, deposing Elizabeth,
and setting Mary Queen of Scots upon the throne. Nothing came of the
plot save the imprisonment of Shelley (who was condemned to death but
escaped the sentence) and the flight of Paget, to hatch further treason
abroad.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE PERFECT WIFE</div>
<p>The last Shelley to hold Michelgrove, now no more, was Sir John, who,
after it had been in the family for three hundred and fifty years, sold
it in 1800. This was the Sir John Shelley who composed the following
epitaph in Clapham church (one of Sir Gilbert Scott's restorations) to
commemorate the very remarkable virtues of his lady—untimely snatched
from his side:—</p>
<p class="center">Here Lyeth the Body of Wilhelmina Shelley<br/>
who departed this Life the 21st of March 1772y<br/>
Aged Twenty three years.</p>
<p class="center">She was a pattern for the World to follow:y<br/>
Such a being both in form and mind perhaps never existed before.y<br/>
A most dutiful, affectionate, and Virtuous Wife,y<br/>
A most tender and Anxious parent,y<br/>
A most sincere and constant Friend,<br/>
A most amiable and elegant companion;<br/>
Universally Benevolent, generous, and humane;<br/>
The Pride of her own Sex,<br/>
The admiration of ours.<br/>
She lived universally belov'd, and admir'd<br/>
She died as generally rever'd, and regretted,<br/>
A loss felt by all who had the happiness of knowing Her,<br/>
By none to be compar'd to <i>that</i> of her disconsolate, affectionate, Loving,<br/>
& in this World everlastingly Miserable Husband,<br/>
Sir JOHN SHELLEY,<br/>
Who has caused this inscription to be Engrav'd.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></SPAN></span>Horsfield tells us that "the beechwoods in this parish [Patching] and
its immediate neighbourhood are very productive of the Truffle
(<i>Lycoperdon tuber</i>). About forty years ago William Leach came from the
West Indies, with some hogs accustomed to hunt for truffles, and
proceeding along the coast from the Land's End, in Cornwall, to the
mouth of the River Thames, determined to fix on that spot where he found
them most abundant. He took four years to try the experiment, and at
length settled in this parish, where he carried on the business of
truffle-hunter till his death."</p>
<p>Angmering, which we may take on our return to Arundel, is a typically
dusty Sussex village, with white houses and thatched roofs, and a rather
finer church than most. On our way back to Arundel, in the middle of a
wood, a little more than a mile from Angmering, to the west, we come
upon an interesting relic of a day when tables bore nobler loads than
now they do: a decoy pond formed originally to supply wild duck to the
kitchen of Arundel Castle, but now no longer used. The long tapering
tunnels of wire netting, into which the tame ducks of the decoy lured
their wild cousins, are still in place, although the wire has largely
perished.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE PALMER TRIPLETS</div>
<p>At an old house near the Decoy (now converted into cottages), which any
native will gladly and amusedly point out, lived, in the reign of Henry
VIII., Lady Palmer, the famous mother of the Palmer triplets, who were
distinguished from other triplets, not only by being born each on a
successive Sunday but by receiving each the honour of knighthood. The
curious circumstances of their birth seem to be well attested.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></SPAN></span></p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page084.png" id="page084.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page084.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='556' alt="Gateway, Amberley Castle" /></p>
<h4><i>Gateway, Amberley Castle.</i></h4>
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