Highways and Byways in Sussex Part 8

CHAPTER VII

ARUNDEL AND NEIGHBOURHOOD

A feudal town--Castles ruined and habitable--The old religion and the new--Bevis of Southampton--Lord Thurlow lays an egg--A n.o.ble park--A song in praise of Suss.e.x--The father of cricket.

Seen from the river or from the east side of the Arun valley, Arundel is the most imposing town in Suss.e.x. Many are larger, many are equally old, or older; but none wears so unusual and interesting an air, not even Lewes among her Downs.

Arundel clings to the side of a s.h.a.ggy hill above the Arun. Castle, cathedral, church--these are Arundel; the town itself is secondary, subordinate, feudal. The castle is what one likes a castle to be--a ma.s.s of battlemented stone, with a keep, a gateway, and a history, and yet more habitable than ever. So many of the rich make no effort to live in their ancestral halls; and what might be a home, carrying on the tradition of ages, is so often only a mere show, that to find an historic castle like Arundel still lived in is very gratifying. In Suss.e.x alone are several half-ruined houses that the builders could quickly make habitable once more. Arundel Castle, in spite of time and the sieges of 1102, 1139, and 1643, is both comfortable and modern; Arundel still depends for her life upon the complaisance of her over-lord.

[Sidenote: MODERN MEDIEVALISM]

I know of no town with so low a pulse as this precipitous little settlement under the shadow of Rome and the Duke. In spite of picnic parties in the park, in spite of anglers from London, in spite of the railway in the valley, Arundel is still medieval and curiously foreign.

On a very hot day, as one climbs the hill to the cathedral, one might be in old France, and certainly in the Middle Ages.

Time's revenges have had their play in this town. Although the church is still bravely of the establishment, half of it is closed to the Anglican visitor (the chancel having been adjudged the private property of the Dukes of Norfolk), and the once dominating position of the edifice has been impaired by the proximity of the new Roman Catholic church of St.

Philip Neri, which the present Duke has been building these many years.

Within, it is finished, a very charming and delicate feat in stone; but the spire has yet to come. The old Irish soldier, humorous and bemedalled, who keeps watch and ward over the fane, is not the least of its merits.

Although the chancel of the parish church has been closed, permission to enter may occasionally be obtained. It is rich in family tombs of great interest and beauty, including that of the nineteenth Earl of Arundel, the patron of William Caxton. In the siege of Arundel Castle in 1643, the soldiers of the parliamentarians, under Sir William Waller, fired their cannon from the church tower. They also turned the church into a barracks, and injured much stone work beyond repair. A fire beacon blazed of old on the spire to serve as a mark for vessels entering Littlehampton harbour.

Bevis of Southampton, the giant who, when he visited the Isle of Wight, waded thither, was a warder at Arundel Castle; where he ate a whole ox every week with bread and mustard, and drank two hogsheads of beer.

Hence "Bevis Tower." His sword Morglay is still to be seen in the armoury of the castle; his bones lie beneath a mound in the park; and the town was named after his horse. So runs a pretty story, which is, however, demolished with the ruthlessness that comes so easily to the antiquary and philologist. Bevis Tower, science declares, was named probably after another Bevis--there was one at the Battle of Lewes, who took prisoner Richard, King of the Romans, and was knighted for it--while Arundel is a corruption of "hirondelle," a swallow. Mr. Lower mentions that in recent times in Suss.e.x "Swallow" was a common name in stables, even for heavy dray horses. But before accepting finally the swallow theory, we ought to hear what Fuller has to say:--"Some will have it so named from _Arundel_ the _Horse_ of _Beavoice_, the great _Champion_. I confess it is not without precedence in _Antiquity_ for _Places_ to take _names_ from _Horses_, meeting with the _Promontory Bucephalus_ in Peloponesus, where some report the _Horse_ of _Alexander_ buried, and Bellonius will have it for the same cause called _Cavalla_ at this day. But this _Castle_ was so called long before that _Imaginary Horse_ was _foled_, who cannot be fancied elder than his Master Beavoice, flourishing after the Conquest, long before which _Arundel_ was so called from the river _Arund_ running hard by it."

[Sidenote: LORD THURLOW LAYS AN EGG]

The owls that once multiplied in the keep have now disappeared. They were established there a hundred years or so ago by the eleventh Duke, and certain of them were known by the names of public men. "Please, your Grace, Lord Thurlow has laid an egg," is an historic speech handed down by tradition. Lord Thurlow, the owl in question, died at a great age in 1859.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Arun at North Stoke._]

[Sidenote: ARUNDEL PARK]

To walk through Arundel Park is to receive a vivid impression of the size and richness of our little isolated England. Two or three great towns could be hidden in it unknown to each other. Valley succeeds to valley; new herds of deer come into sight at almost every turn; as far as the eye can see the gra.s.s hills roll away. Those accustomed to parks whose deer are always huddled close and whose wall is never distant, are bewildered by the vastness of this enclosure. Yet one has also the feeling that such magnificence is right: to so lovely a word as Arundel, to the Premier Duke and Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, should fittingly fall this far-spreading and comely pleasaunce. Had Arundel Park been small and empty of deer what a blunder it would be.

Walking west of Arundel through the vast Rewell Wood, we come suddenly upon Punch-bowl Green, and open a great green valley, dominated by the white facade of Dale Park House, below Madehurst, one of the most remote of Suss.e.x villages.

[Sidenote: SLINDON]

By keeping due west for another mile Slindon is reached. This village is one of the Suss.e.x backwaters, as one might say. It lies on no road that any one ever travels except for the purpose of going to Slindon or coming from it; and those that perform either of these actions are few.

Yet all who have not seen Slindon are by so much the poorer, for Slindon House is n.o.bly Elizabethan, with fine pictures and hiding-places, and Slindon beeches are among the aristocracy of trees. And here I should like to quote a Suss.e.x poem of haunting wistfulness and charm, which was written by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who once walked to Rome and is an old dweller at Slindon:--

[Sidenote: A SOUTH COUNTRY SONG]

THE SOUTH COUNTRY.

When I am living in the Midlands, That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea: And it's there walking in the high woods That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England I saw them for a day: Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and grey: From their castle-walls a man may see The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England They see the Severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along.

They have the secret of the Rocks, And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise, They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes Comes surely from our Sister the Spring, When over the sea she flies; The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines, But I smell the Suss.e.x air, Nor I never come on a belt of sand But my home is there; And along the sky the line of the Downs So n.o.ble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend; And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end.

Who will there be to comfort me, Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends Of the men of the Suss.e.x Weald, They watch the stars from silent folds, They stiffly plough the field.

By them and the G.o.d of the South Country My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man, Or if ever I grow to be old, I will build a house with deep thatch To shelter me from the cold, And there shall the Suss.e.x songs be sung And the story of Suss.e.x told.

I will hold my house in the high wood Within a walk of the sea, And the men who were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me.

[Sidenote: NEWLAND, NYREN, AND SILVER BILLY]

Richard Newland, the father of serious cricket, came from this parish.

He was born in 1718, or thereabouts, and in 1745 he made 88 for England against Kent. He was left-handed, and the finest bat ever seen in those days. He taught Richard Nyren, of Hambledon, all the skill and judgment that that n.o.ble general possessed; Nyren communicated his knowledge to the Hambledon eleven, and the game was made. An interest in historical veracity compels me to add that William Beldham--Silver Billy--talking to Mr. Pycroft, discounted some of Nyren's praise. "Cricket," he said, "was played in Suss.e.x very early, before my day at least [he was born in 1766]; but that there was no good play I know by this, that Richard Newland, of Slindon in Suss.e.x, as you say, sir, taught old Richard Nyren, and that no Suss.e.x man could be found to play Newland. Now a second-rate man of our parish beat Newland easily; so you may judge what the rest of Suss.e.x then were." But this is disregarding the characteristic uncertainty of the game.

If one would spend a day far from mankind, on high ground, there is no better way than to walk from Arundel through Houghton Forest (where, as we have seen, Charles II. avoided the Governor) to c.o.c.king.

CHAPTER VIII

LITTLEHAMPTON

A children's paradise--Wind-swept villages--Cary and Coleridge--Suss.e.x folklore--Climping--Richard Jefferies and Suss.e.x--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 Suss.e.x truffler--The Palmer triplets.

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.

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 Suss.e.x 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.

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."

[Sidenote: A CHURCH DUEL]

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."