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wife the daughter of a soldier. When Gulielma Penn died, at the age of fifty, her husband wrote of her: "She was a Publick, as well as Private Loss; for she was not only an excellent Wife and Mother, but an Entire and Constant Friend, of a more than common Capacity, and greater Modesty and Humility; yet most equal and undaunted in Danger. Religious as well as Ingenuous, without Affectation. An easie Mistress, and Good Neighbour, especially to the Poor. Neither lavish nor penurious, but an Example of Industry as well as of other Vertues: Therefore our great Loss tho' her own Eternal Gain."
GODLY WIVES

In Ringmer Church, I might add, is a monument to Mrs. Jeffray (née Mayney), wife of Francis Jeffray of South Malling, with another beautiful testimony to the character of a good wife:—

Wise, modest, more than can be marshall'd heere, (Her many vertues would a volume fill) For all heaven's gifts—in many single sett— In Jeffray's Maney altogether mett.
A DETERMINED CHURCHWOMAN

Ringmer was long famous for its mud and bad roads. Defoe (or another) says in the Tour through Great Britain:—"I travelled through the dirtiest, but, in many respects, the richest and most profitable country in all that part of England. The timber I saw here was prodigious, as well in quantity as in bigness; and seemed in some places to be suffered to grow only because it was so far from any navigation, that it was not worth cutting down and carrying away. In dry summers, indeed, a great deal is conveyed to Maidstone and other places on the Medway; and sometimes I have seen one tree on a carriage, which they call in Sussex a tug, drawn by twenty-two oxen; and, even then, it is carried so little a way, and thrown down, and left for other tugs to take up and carry on, that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets to Chatham. For, if once the rain comes on, it stirs no more that year, and sometimes a whole summer is not dry enough to make the road passable. Here I had a sight which, indeed, I never saw in any part of England before—namely, that going to a church at a country village, not far from Lewes, I saw an ancient lady, and a lady of very good quality, I assure you, drawn to church in her coach by six oxen; nor was it done in frolick or humour, but from sheer necessity, the way being so stiff and deep that no horses could go in it." The old lady was not singular in her method of attending service, for another writer records seeing Sir Herbert Springett, father of Sir William, drawn to church by eight oxen: a determination to get to his pew at any cost that led to the composition of the following ballad, which is now printed for the first time:—

THE RIDE TO CHURCH




THE RIDE TO CHURCH.

"A true sonne of the Church of England."

   Epitaph on Sir Herbert Springett,
         in Ringmer Church.          
Let others sing the wild career Of Turpin, Gilpin, Paul Revere. A gentler pace is mine. But hear!
The raindrops fell, splash! thud! splash! thud! Till half the country-side was flood, And Ringmer was a waste of mud.
The sleepy Ouse had grown a sea, Where here and there a drowning tree Cast up its arms beseechingly;
And cattle that in fairer days Beside its banks were wont to graze Now viewed the scene in mild amaze,
And, huddled on an island mound, Sent forth so dolorous a sound As made the sadness more profound.
And then—at last—one Sunday broke When villagers, delighted, woke To find the sun had flung its cloak
Of leaden-coloured cloud aside. All jubilant they watched him ride, For see, the land was glorified:
The morning pulsed with youth and mirth. It was as though upon the earth A new and gladder age had birth.
The lark exulted in the blue, Triumphantly the rooster crew, The chimneys laughed, the sparks up-flew;
And rolling westward out of sight, Like billows of majestic height, The Downs, transfigured in the light,
Seemed such a garb of joy to wear, So young and radiant an air, God might but just have set them there.
         *         *         *         *         *
Sir Herbert Springett, Ringmer's squire, (No better man in all the shire)— He too was filled with kindling fire,
Which, working in him, did incite The worthy and capacious knight To doughty deeds of appetite.
Sir Herbert's lady watched her lord Range mightily about the board Which she of her abundance stored,
(The Lady Barbara, for whom The blossoms of the simple-room Diffused their friendliest perfume,
Than who none quicklier heard the call Of true distress, and left the Hall Eager to do her gentle all,
When village patients needed aid. And O the rich Marchpane she made! And O the rare quince marmalade!)
Just as the squire was satisfied, The noise of feet was heard outside; A knock. "Come in!" Sir Herbert cried.
And lo! John Grigg in Sunday smock; Begged pardon, pulled an oily lock; Explained: "The mud's above the hough.
"No horse could draw 'ee sir," he said. "Humph!" quoth the squire and scratched his head. "Then yoke the oxen in instead."
(A lesser man would gladly turn His chair to fire again, and learn How fancifully logs can burn,
Grateful for such immunity From parson. Not the squire; for see, "True sonne of England's Church" was he.)
So, as he ordered, was it done. The oxen came forth one by one, Their wide horns glinting in the sun,
And to the coach were yoked. Then—dressed, As squires should be, in glorious best, With wonderful brocaded vest,—
Out came Sir Herbert, took his seat, Waved "Barbara, farewell, my Sweet!" And off they started, all complete.
Although they drew so light a load (For them!) so heavy was the road, John Grigg was busy with his goad.
The cottagers in high delight Ran out to see the startling sight And make obeisance to the knight,
While floated through the liquid air, And o'er the sunlit meadows fair, The throbbing belfry's call to prayer.
At last, and after many a lurch That shook Sir Herbert in his perch, John Grigg drew up before the church;
Moreover not a minute late. The villagers around the gate Were filled with wonder at his state,
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."
OXEN OF THE HILLS

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 up—that 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 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?"

ROUGH ROADS

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.

PLASHETTS

While at Ringmer, 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—Framfield—The 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 whimsically translates "Catch is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better." In the Shurley chapel, 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

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