<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
<h3>UCKFIELD AND BUXTED</h3>
<blockquote><p>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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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, <i>née</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></SPAN></span>her minutes were but
steppes to heaven." Our county has many fine monuments, but I think
that, this is the most charming of all.</p>
<div class="sidenote">FRAMFIELD</div>
<p>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.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page293.png" id="page293.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page293.png" width-obs='700' height-obs='470' alt="Framfield" /></p>
<h4><i>Framfield.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">RICHARD REALF</div>
<p>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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></SPAN></span> friend of man, liberty and John Brown; he fought
against slavery in the war, and helped the cause with some noble verses;
and he died miserably by his own hand in 1878, leaving these lines
beside his body:—</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div>"De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When</div>
<div class="i1">For me this end has come and I am dead,</div>
<div>And the little voluble, chattering daws of men</div>
<div class="i1">Peck at me curiously, let it then be said</div>
<div>By some one brave enough to speak the truth:</div>
<div class="i1">Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong.</div>
<div>Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth</div>
<div class="i1">To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song,</div>
<div>And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart,</div>
<div class="i1">He wrought for liberty, till his own wound</div>
<div>(He had been stabbed), concealed with painful art</div>
<div class="i1">Through wasting years, mastered him, and he swooned,</div>
<div>And sank there where you see him lying now</div>
<div class="i1">With the word "Failure" written on his brow.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>But say that he succeeded. If he missed</div>
<div class="i1">World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage</div>
<div>Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed</div>
<div class="i1">Daily by those high angels who assuage</div>
<div>The thirstings of the poets—for he was</div>
<div class="i1">Born unto singing—and a burthen lay</div>
<div>Mightily on him, and he moaned because</div>
<div class="i1">He could not rightly utter to the day</div>
<div>What God taught in the night. Sometimes, nathless,</div>
<div class="i1">Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame,</div>
<div>And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress;</div>
<div class="i1">And benedictions from black pits of shame,</div>
<div>And little children's love, and old men's prayers,</div>
<div class="i1">And a Great Hand that led him unawares.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div>So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred</div>
<div class="i1">With big films—silence! he is in his grave.</div>
<div>Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred</div>
<div class="i1">Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave.</div>
<div>Nor did he wait till Freedom had become</div>
<div class="i1">The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips;</div>
<div>He smote for her when God Himself seemed dumb</div>
<div class="i1">And all His arching skies were in eclipse.</div>
<div><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></SPAN></span>He was a-weary, but he fought his fight,</div>
<div class="i1">And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed</div>
<div>To see the august broadening of the light</div>
<div class="i1">And new earths heaving heavenward from the void.</div>
<div>He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet—</div>
<div class="i1">Plant daisies at his head and at his feet.</div>
</div></div>
<p>Uckfield's main street is divided sharply into two periods—from the
station to the road leading to the church all is new; beyond, all is
old. The town is not interesting in itself, but it commands good
country, and has a good inn, the Maiden's Head. It is also a good
specimen of the quieter market-town of the past—with a brewery (hiding
behind a wonderful tree braced with kindly iron bands), a water mill
(down by the railway), and several solid comfortable houses for the
doctor and the lawyer and the brewer and the parson, with ample gardens
behind them.</p>
<p>Uckfield was once the home of Jeremiah Markland, the great classic, who
acted as tutor here to Edward Clarke, son of the famous William Clarke,
rector of Buxted, and father of Edward Daniel Clarke, the traveller. It
is agreeable to remember that Fanny Burney passed through the town with
Mrs. Thrale in 1779, although she found nothing to interest her.</p>
<div class="sidenote">THE UCKFIELD ROCKS</div>
<p>Uckfield is the southern boundary of the rock district of which we saw
something at West Hoathly, and it is famous for the sandstone cliffs in
the grounds of High Rocks, an estate on the south of the town. The
unthinking untidiness and active penknives of the holiday makers made it
recently necessary for the grounds to be closed to strangers. Close by,
however, just off the road from Uckfield to Maresfield, is a rocky tract
that is free to all. It consists of about an acre of grey, sandy
boulders, some rising to a height of twenty feet or so, which remind one
a little of the <i>rochers</i> in the Forest of Fontainebleau, although on a
smaller scale. All are worn with the feet of adventurous boys enjoying
one of the best natural playgrounds in the county. Here blackberries
come to rich<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></SPAN></span> perfection, the sun's ripening warmth being thrown back
from the hot sand.</p>
<p>When I first knew Maresfield church, many years ago, its aged vicar
rolled out "Thou shalt do no mur-r-r-der" with an accusing timbre that
seemed to bring the sin home to all of us. He had also so peculiar a way
of pronouncing "Albert," that his prayer for our rulers seemed to make
an invidious distinction, and ask a blessing, not for all, but for all
but Edward, Prince of Wales.</p>
<div class="sidenote">PURITAN NAMES</div>
<p>Some of the oddest of the composite pietistic names that broke out over
England during the Puritan revolution are to be found in Sussex
registers. In 1632, Master Performe-thy-vowes Seers of Maresfield
married Thomasine Edwards. His full name was too much for the village,
and four years later is found an entry recording the burial of "Vowes
Seers" pure and simple. The searcher of parish registers from whose
articles in the <i>Sussex Daily News</i> I have already quoted, has also
found that Heathfield had many Puritan names, among them "Replenished,"
which was given to the daughter of Robert Pryor in 1600. There was also
a Heathfield damsel known as "More-Fruits." Mr. Lower prints the
following names from a Sussex jury list in the seventeenth century:
Redeemed Compton of Battel, Stand-fast-on-high Stringer of Crowhurst,
Weep-not Billing of Lewes, Called Lower of Warbleton, Elected Mitchell
of Heathfield, Renewed Wisberry of Hailsham, Fly-fornication Richardson
of Waldron, The-Peace-of-God Knight of Burwash,
Fight-the-good-fight-of-Faith White of Ewhurst, and Kill-sin Pemble of
Withyham. Also a Master More-Fruits Fowler of East Hoathly, for it seems
that in such names there was no sex.</p>
<p>Among the curious Sussex surnames found by the student of the county
archives who is quoted above are the following:—</p>
<table border='0' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='5' summary='sussex surnames'>
<tr>
<td>Pitchfork</td>
<td> Sweetname</td>
<td>Lies</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Devil</td>
<td>Slybody</td>
<td>Hogsflesh</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></SPAN></span>Leper</td>
<td>Fidge</td>
<td>Backfield</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Handshut</td>
<td>Beatup</td>
<td>Breathing</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Juglery</td>
<td>Rougehead </td>
<td>Whiskey</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Hollowbone </td>
<td>Punch</td>
<td>Wildgoose</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Stillborne</td>
<td>Padge</td>
<td>Ann.</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Almost every name here would have pleased Dickens, while some might have
been invented by him, notably Fidge and Padge. One can almost see Mr.
Fidge and Mr. Padge drolling it in his pages.</p>
<div class="sidenote">BUXTED DEER</div>
<p>From the Maresfield rocks Buxted is easily reached, about a mile due
east; but a far prettier approach is through Buxted Park, which is
gained by a footpath out of Uckfield's main street. The charm of Buxted
is its deer. Sussex, as we have seen, is rich in parks containing deer,
but I know of none other where one may be so certain of coming close to
these beautiful creatures. Nor can I recall any other deer that are so
exquisitely dappled; but that may be because the Buxted deer were the
first I ever saw, thirty years ago, and we like to think the first the
best. Certainly they are the friendliest, or least timid. The act of
going to church is invested at Buxted with an almost unique attraction,
since the deer lie hard by the path. Indeed, the last time I went to
church at Buxted I never passed through the door at all, but sat on a
gravestone throughout the service and watched the herd in its graceful
restlessness. That was twelve years ago. The other day I watched them
again and could see no change. Some of the stags were still as of old
almost bowed beneath their antlers, although one at any rate was free,
for a keeper who passed carried a pair of horns in his hand.</p>
<p class="center"><SPAN name="page298.png" id="page298.png"></SPAN><ANTIMG src="images/page298.png" width-obs='529' height-obs='700' alt="In Buxted Park" /></p>
<h4><i>In Buxted Park.</i></h4>
<div class="sidenote">RALPH HOGGE</div>
<p>The old house at the beginning of the footpath to the church, with a hog
in bas-relief on its façade, is known as the Hog House, and is said to
have been the residence of Ralph Hogge. Who was Ralph Hogge? Who is
Hiram Maxim? Who was Krupp? Who was Nordenfelt? It was Ralph Hogge,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></SPAN></span>
iron-master, who in the year 1543 made the first English metal cannon.
So at any rate say tradition and Holinshed. Buxted is otherwise most
pacific of villages, sleepy and undiscovered.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></SPAN></span> In the early years of the
last century it boasted the possession of a labourer with a memory of
amazing tenacity, one George Watson, who, otherwise almost imbecile, was
unable to forget anything he had once seen, or any figure repeated to
him.</p>
<p>On the road between Maresfield and Crowborough is Heron's Ghyll, the
residence of Mr. Fitzalan Hope. It stands to the east of the road, in
one of those hollow sites that alone won the word "eligible" from a
Tudor builder. Hard by the road is the perfect little Early English
Roman Catholic church which Mr. Hope built in 1897, a miracle, in these
hurried florid days, of honest work and simple modest beauty. The church
being Roman Catholic one may with confidence turn aside to rest a little
in its cool seclusion, relieved of the irritating search for the sexton
of the national establishment, and freed from his haunting presence and
suggestion that the labourer is worthy of more than his hire.</p>
<div class="sidenote">CLOSED CHURCHES</div>
<p>While on this subject I might remark that a county vicar describing the
antiquities of his neighbourhood in one of the Sussex Archæological
Society's volumes, writes magnanimously: "A debt of gratitude is
certainly due to our Roman Catholic predecessors (whatever error might
mix itself with their piety and charity) for erecting such noble
edifices, in a style of strength to endure for a late posterity." It
seems to me that a very simple way of discharging a portion of this debt
would be to imitate the excellent habit of leaving the church doors wide
open, as practised by those Roman Catholic predecessors. My own impulse
to enter many of the Sussex churches has been principally antiquarian or
æsthetic, but to rest amid their gray coolnesses is a legitimate desire
which should be fostered rather than discouraged, particularly as it is
under such conditions that the soul even of the stranger whose motive is
curiosity is often comforted. The arguments in favour of keeping
churches closed are unknown to me. Doubtless they are numerous and
ingenious, but, doubtless equally, a locked church is a confession of
failure; while to urge that one has but to ask<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></SPAN></span> for the key to be able
to enter a church is no true reply, since hospitality, whether to the
body or the soul, loses in sweetness and effect as it loses in
spontaneity.</p>
<div class="sidenote">TO CROWBOROUGH</div>
<p>From Heron's Ghyll to Crowborough is a steady climb for three miles,
with the heathery wastes of Ashdown Forest on the left and the hilly
district around Mayfield on the right.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></SPAN></span></p>
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