<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
<h3>GLYNDE AND RINGMER</h3>
<blockquote><p>Mount Caburn—The lark's song—William Hay, the poet of
Caburn—Glynde church and Glynde place—John Ellman—The South Down
sheep—Arthur Young—Ringmer and William Penn—The Ringmer mud—The
ballad of "The Ride to Church"—Oxen on the Hills—The old Sussex
roads—Bad travelling—Ringmer and Gilbert White.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the pleasantest short walks from Lewes takes one over Mount
Caburn to Glynde, from Glynde to Ringmer, and from Ringmer over the
hills to Lewes again.</p>
<p>The path to Mount Caburn winds upward just beyond the turn of the road
to Glynde, under the Cliffe. Caburn is not one of the highest of the
Downs (a mere 490 feet, whereas Firle Beacon across the valley is
upwards of 700): but it is one of the friendliest of them, for on its
very summit is a deep grassy hollow (relic of ancient British
fortification) where on the windiest day one may rest in that perfect
peace that comes only after climbing. Caburn is not unique in this
respect; there is, for example, a similar hollow in the hill above
Kingly Vale; but Caburn has a deeper cavity than any other that I can
recall. On the roughest day, thus cupped, one may hear, almost see, the
gale go by overhead; and on such a mild spring day as that when I was
last there, towards the end of April, there is no such place in which to
lie and listen to the lark. If one were asked to name an employment
consistent with perfect idleness it would be difficult to suggest a
better than that of watching a lark melting out of sight into the sky,
and then finding it again.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></SPAN></span> This you may do in Caburn's hollow as
nowhere else. The song of the lark thus followed by eye and ear—for
song and bird become one—passes naturally into the music of the
spheres: there exist in the universe only yourself and this cosmic
twitter.</p>
<p>The Lewes golfers, of both sexes, pursue their sport some way towards
Caburn, and in the valley below the volunteers fire at their butts; but
I doubt if the mountain proper will ever be tamed. Picnics are held on
the summit on fine summer days, but for the greater part of the year it
belongs to the horseman, the shepherd and the lark.</p>
<p>Mount Caburn gave its title to a poem by William Hay, of Glyndebourne
House, in 1730, which ends with these lines, in the manner of an
epitaph, upon their author:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>Here liv'd the Man, who to these fair Retreats</div>
<div>First drew the Muses from their ancient Seats:</div>
<div>Tho' low his Thought, tho' impotent his Strain,</div>
<div>Yet let me never of his Song complain;</div>
<div>For this the fruitless Labour recommends,</div>
<div>He lov'd his native Country, and his Friends.</div>
</div></div>
<p>William Hay (1695-1755) was author also of a curious Essay on Deformity,
which Charles Lamb liked, and of several philosophical works, and was a
very diligent member of Parliament.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page282.png" id="page282.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page282.png" width-obs='663' height-obs='700' alt="Glynde" /></p>
<h4><i>Glynde.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">GLYNDE</div>
<p>Descending Caburn's eastern slope, and passing at the foot the mellowest
barn roof in the county, beautifully yellowed by weather and time, we
come to Glynde, remarkable among Sussex villages for a formal Grecian
church that might have been ravished from a Surrey Thames-side village
and set down here, so little resemblance has it to the indigenous Sussex
House of God. As a matter of fact it was built in 1765 by the Bishop of
Durham—the Bishop being Richard Trevor, of the family that then owned
Glynde Place; which is hard by the church, a fine Elizabethan mansion, a
little sombre, and very much in the manner of the great houses in the
late S. E. Waller's pictures, the very place for a clandestine interview
or midnight elopement. The<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></SPAN></span> present owner, a descendant of the Trevors
and of the famous John Hampden, enemy of the Star Chamber and ship
money, is Admiral Brand.</p>
<div class="sidenote">JOHN ELLMAN</div>
<p>Glynde's most famous inhabitant was John Ellman (1753-1832) the breeder
of sheep, who farmed here from 1780 to 1829 and was the village's kindly
autocrat and a true father to his men. The last of the patriarchs, as he
might be called, Ellman lodged all his unmarried labourers under his own
roof, giving them when they married enough grassland for a pig and a
cow, and a little more for cultivation. He built a school for the
children of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></SPAN></span> his men, and permitted no licensed house to exist in
Glynde. Not that he objected to beer; on the contrary he considered it
the true beverage for farm labourers; but he preferred that they should
brew it at home. It was John Ellman who gave the South Down sheep its
fame and brought it to perfection.</p>
<div class="sidenote">ARTHUR YOUNG</div>
<p>The most interesting account of South Down sheep is to be found in
Arthur Young's <i>General View of the Agriculture of the County of
Sussex</i>, which is one of those books that, beginning their lives as
practical, instructive and somewhat dry manuals, mellow, as the years go
by, into human documents. Taken sentence by sentence Young has no charm,
but his book has in the mass quite a little of it, particularly if one
loves Sussex. He studied the country carefully, with special emphasis
upon the domain of the Earl of Egremont, an agricultural reformer of
much influence, whom we have met as a collector of pictures and the
friend of painters. For the Earl not only brought Turner into Sussex
with his brushes and palette, but introduced a plough from Suffolk and
devised a new light waggon. The other hero of Young's book is
necessarily John Ellman, whose flock at Glynde he subjected to close
examination. Thomas Ellman, of Shoreham, John's cousin, he also approved
as a breeder of sheep, but it is John that stood nighest the Earl of
Egremont on Young's ladder of approbation. John Ellman's sheep were
considered the first of their day, equally for their meat and their
wool. I will not quote from Young to any great extent, lest vegetarian
readers exclaim; but the following passage from his analysis of the
South Down type must be transplanted here for its pleasant carnal
vigour: "The shoulders are wide; they are round and straight in the
barrel; broad upon the loin and hips; shut well in the twist, which is a
projection of flesh in the inner part of the thigh that gives a fulness
when viewed behind, and makes a South Down leg of mutton remarkably
round and short, more so than in most other breeds."</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE SOUTH DOWN SHEEP</div>
<p>John Ellman by no means satisfied all his fellow breeders<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></SPAN></span> that he was
right. His neighbour at Glynde, Mr. Morris, differed from him in the
matter of crossing, and his cousin Thomas had other views on many points
touching the flock. In the following passage Arthur Young expresses the
extent to which individuality in sheep breeding may run:—"The South
Down farmers breed their sheep with faces and legs of a colour, just as
suits their fancy. One likes black, another sandy, a third speckled, and
one and all exclaim against white. This man concludes that legs and
faces with an inclination to white are infallible signs of tenderness,
and do not stand against the severity of the weather with the same
hardiness as the darker breed; and they allege that these sorts will
fall off in their flesh. A second will set the first right, and
pronounce that, in a lot of wethers, those that are soonest and most
fat, are white-faced; that they prove remarkable good milkers; but that
white is an indication of a tender breed. Another is of opinion that, by
breeding the lambs too black, the wool is injured, and likewise apt to
be tainted with black, and spotted, especially about the neck, and not
saleable. A fourth breeds with legs and faces as black as it is
possible; and he too is convinced that the healthiness is in proportion
to blackness; whilst another says, that if the South Down sheep were
suffered to run in a wild state, they would in a very few years become
absolutely black. All these are the opinions of eminent breeders: in
order to reconcile them, others breed for speckled faces; and it is the
prevailing colour."</p>
<p>It is told that when the Duke of Newcastle used to pass through Glynde,
on his way from Halland House, near East Hoathly, to Bishopstone, the
peal of welcome was rung on ploughshares, since there was but one bell.</p>
<p>Ringmer, which lies about two miles north of Glynde, is not in itself a
village of much beauty. Its distinction is to have provided William Penn
with a wife—Gulielma Springett, daughter of Sir William Springett, a
Puritan, whose bust is in the church and who died at the siege of
Arundel Castle. The<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></SPAN></span> great Quaker thus took to 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."</p>
<div class="sidenote">GODLY WIVES</div>
<p>In Ringmer Church, I might add, is a monument to Mrs. Jeffray (<i>née</i>
Mayney), wife of Francis Jeffray of South Malling, with another
beautiful testimony to the character of a good wife:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>Wise, modest, more than can be marshall'd heere,</div>
<div>(Her many vertues would a volume fill)</div>
<div>For all heaven's gifts—in many single sett—</div>
<div>In Jeffray's <i>Maney</i> altogether mett.</div>
</div></div>
<div class="sidenote">A DETERMINED CHURCHWOMAN</div>
<p>Ringmer was long famous for its mud and bad roads. Defoe (or another)
says in the <i>Tour through Great Britain</i>:—"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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></SPAN></span> 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:—</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE RIDE TO CHURCH</div>
<p class="center"><br/><br/><br/>THE RIDE TO CHURCH.</p>
<p class="center">"A true sonne of the Church of England."</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="i14"> <i>Epitaph on Sir Herbert Springett,</i></div>
<div class="i14"> <i>in Ringmer Church. </i></div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Let others sing the wild career</div>
<div>Of Turpin, Gilpin, Paul Revere.</div>
<div>A gentler pace is mine. But hear!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The raindrops fell, splash! thud! splash! thud!</div>
<div>Till half the country-side was flood,</div>
<div>And Ringmer was a waste of mud.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The sleepy Ouse had grown a sea,</div>
<div>Where here and there a drowning tree</div>
<div>Cast up its arms beseechingly;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And cattle that in fairer days</div>
<div>Beside its banks were wont to graze</div>
<div>Now viewed the scene in mild amaze,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And, huddled on an island mound,</div>
<div>Sent forth so dolorous a sound</div>
<div>As made the sadness more profound.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And then—at last—one Sunday broke</div>
<div>When villagers, delighted, woke</div>
<div>To find the sun had flung its cloak</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></SPAN></span>Of leaden-coloured cloud aside.</div>
<div>All jubilant they watched him ride,</div>
<div>For see, the land was glorified:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The morning pulsed with youth and mirth.</div>
<div>It was as though upon the earth</div>
<div>A new and gladder age had birth.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The lark exulted in the blue,</div>
<div>Triumphantly the rooster crew,</div>
<div>The chimneys laughed, the sparks up-flew;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And rolling westward out of sight,</div>
<div>Like billows of majestic height,</div>
<div>The Downs, transfigured in the light,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Seemed such a garb of joy to wear,</div>
<div>So young and radiant an air,</div>
<div>God might but just have set them there.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div> * * * * *</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Sir Herbert Springett, Ringmer's squire,</div>
<div>(No better man in all the shire)—</div>
<div>He too was filled with kindling fire,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Which, working in him, did incite</div>
<div>The worthy and capacious knight</div>
<div>To doughty deeds of appetite.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Sir Herbert's lady watched her lord</div>
<div>Range mightily about the board</div>
<div>Which she of her abundance stored,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>(The Lady Barbara, for whom</div>
<div>The blossoms of the simple-room</div>
<div>Diffused their friendliest perfume,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Than who none quicklier heard the call</div>
<div>Of true distress, and left the Hall</div>
<div>Eager to do her gentle all,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>When village patients needed aid.</div>
<div>And O the rich Marchpane she made!</div>
<div>And O the rare quince marmalade!)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Just as the squire was satisfied,</div>
<div>The noise of feet was heard outside;</div>
<div>A knock. "Come in!" Sir Herbert cried.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></SPAN></span>And lo! John Grigg in Sunday smock;</div>
<div>Begged pardon, pulled an oily lock;</div>
<div>Explained: "The mud's above the hough.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>"No horse could draw 'ee sir," he said.</div>
<div>"Humph!" quoth the squire and scratched his head.</div>
<div>"Then yoke the oxen in instead."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>(A lesser man would gladly turn</div>
<div>His chair to fire again, and learn</div>
<div>How fancifully logs can burn,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Grateful for such immunity</div>
<div>From parson. Not the squire; for see,</div>
<div>"True sonne of England's Church" was he.)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>So, as he ordered, was it done.</div>
<div>The oxen came forth one by one,</div>
<div>Their wide horns glinting in the sun,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>And to the coach were yoked. Then—dressed,</div>
<div>As squires should be, in glorious best,</div>
<div>With wonderful brocaded vest,—</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Out came Sir Herbert, took his seat,</div>
<div>Waved "Barbara, farewell, my Sweet!"</div>
<div>And off they started, all complete.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Although they drew so light a load</div>
<div>(For them!) so heavy was the road,</div>
<div>John Grigg was busy with his goad.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>The cottagers in high delight</div>
<div>Ran out to see the startling sight</div>
<div>And make obeisance to the knight,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>While floated through the liquid air,</div>
<div>And o'er the sunlit meadows fair,</div>
<div>The throbbing belfry's call to prayer.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>At last, and after many a lurch</div>
<div>That shook Sir Herbert in his perch,</div>
<div>John Grigg drew up before the church;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Moreover not a minute late.</div>
<div>The villagers around the gate</div>
<div>Were filled with wonder at his state,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></SPAN></span>And, promptly, though 'twas sabbath tide,</div>
<div>"Three cheers for squire—Hooray!" they cried....</div>
<div>Such was Sir Herbert Springett's ride.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div> * * * * *</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Sad is the sequel, sad but true—</div>
<div>For while in sermon-time a few</div>
<div>Deep snores resounded from the pew</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>Reserved for squire, by others there</div>
<div>The tenth commandment (men declare)</div>
<div>Was being broken past repair:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>For, thinking how they had to roam</div>
<div>Through weary wastes of sodden loam</div>
<div>Ere they could win to fire and home,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>In spite of parson's fervid knocks</div>
<div>Upon his cushion orthodox,</div>
<div>They "coveted their neighbour's ox."</div>
</div></div>
<div class="sidenote">OXEN OF THE HILLS</div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Sussex roads were terrible until comparatively recent times. An old
rhyme credits "Sowseks" with "dirt and myre," and Dr. Burton, the author
of the <i>Iter Sussexiensis</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></SPAN></span> 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?"</p>
<div class="sidenote">ROUGH ROADS</div>
<p>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."</p>
<p>To return to Ringmer, it was there that Gilbert White studied the
tortoise (see Letter xiii of <i>The Natural History of Selborne</i>). 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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">PLASHETTS</div>
<p>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.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></SPAN></span></p>
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