a well-preserved piscina was pointed out to me, having a bracket on the top presumably to support an image, "in which respect this piscina is almost, if not quite, unique in England." Then in turn we inspected some of the ancient monuments; reclining on the first altar tomb were two recumbent alabaster effigies side by side, one of a beruffled man in armour and warlike of countenance, the other of his wife. The inscription below runs: "Here lyeth buried the body of Richard Lache. Coming out of his office of High Sheriff for the counties of Sussex and Surrey, having no issue of his body living, he gave all his lands in the county of Sussex unto Catherine his wife, and made her sole executoress of his last will. In regard whereof … she of her own account caused this monument to be made, and herself living, to be pictured lying by him, as you see." Yet this disconsolate widow consoled herself the next year by marrying the Earl of Nottingham and lies buried elsewhere! Inconstant woman! Another fine altar tomb, though minus inscription, is supposed by the coat of arms remaining on it to be that of Sir Edward Dalyngruge, "who having amassed a large fortune by war, marriage, and court patronage, obtained the royal license to build upon the hereditary estate of his wife the castle of Bodiam." There were also other ancient tombs of lesser interest, one mutilated but apparently to a crusader and his wife; and a thirteenth-century slab with only the matrix of its brass remaining. In the transept I noticed, hung against the wall, two crested helmets, gilt and coloured, the gilding and colours being much age-dimmed, with rusty spurs and gauntlets suspended just below: the crests were those of the Abergavenny family. There were also other features of interest in the church—a penitent's window, a holy water stoup, and at a late restoration I learnt that one of the pillars by the chancel was found to be hollow and to contain the old steps intact leading to the rood-loft, and at the top of the steps an ancient green chasuble was discovered, left there in some haste or for concealment, it may be imagined.
On leaving I asked the rector if he knew of any curious epitaph in the churchyard. Time, alas! has robbed us of many a one, and worse still, to my knowledge, certain men placed "in a little brief authority," not approving of such levity on sacred ground, have deliberately obliterated others. "But," said the rector, "if I cannot show you any quaint epitaph, I can tell you of a singular one I came upon some time ago in ancient St. Mary's churchyard at Eastbourne; it ran, 'A virtuous woman is 5/- to her husband.' This puzzled me at first, then I came to the conclusion that it should read, 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' Possibly the carver was an illiterate man, and, being apparently short of space, substituted 5/- for crown, deeming them synonymous. But whatever the explanation, that is how the epitaph read."
Fletching church was one of the happy discoveries of the journey; though much restored it is of more than ordinary interest. There are, indeed, but few churches of ancient date that have not something noteworthy to reveal to the traveller; truly they are chapters of history in stone, and some of them are, in a sense, museums. It is well worth a wanderer's while to step aside now and then to inspect carefully and leisurely a country church (carefully, or he may miss much), especially those in remote spots where a want of pence has happily restrained the restorer's hand: blessed be their poverty, I say, for owing to it only needful reparation has been done, so ancient tombs and brasses have remained undisturbed, and the medieval craftsman's handiwork has not been improved away, to the joy of every lover of the never-returning and picturesque past.
CHAPTER III
An old coaching inn—The resurrection of the road—Far from anywhere—The charm of the unexpected—A historic milestone—"Mine host" of past days—Our port-wine drinking ancestors—The lure of the lane—Village life—Miniature effigy of a knight—The tomb of "the good Archbishop Leighton"—A church clerk's story.
Leaving Fletching by a leafy lane, we shortly came to a grass-margined highway, and where the lane and highway met, stood, somewhat back from the road, a lonely old inn—"The Sheffield Arms" to wit—a well-preserved example of a modest country hostelry of the easy-going Georgian era; one that externally shows no signs of alteration since it first was built, and few are the inns of the period that have not suffered some change during those changeful years. As our posting and coach-travelling forefathers saw "The Sheffield Arms" with its long range of stabling on one side, so it looks to-day, only a little more time-toned and weather-stained, with less life about it and, what life there is, less picturesque.
There was no other building in sight on the long, straight, but undulating stretch of tree-bordered road fronting the inn, excepting one or two lowly cottages half hidden in woods, so out of direct observation that they did not lessen the impression of loneliness and the illusion of remoteness that the place gave. "Miles from Anywhere. No Hurry," is the legend displayed on the gable of another lonely inn at Upware in the Fens; it might as well be written on the signboard of "The Sheffield Arms."
An ancient coaching hostelry of some pretence, that has seen better days and other ways, that has not been modernised, standing forlorn by the roadside, but still appearing too proud to mourn its long-lost prosperity, always makes its appeal to me, for it strikes a pathetic note. I do not need the building to be picturesque, though I would prefer it thus, so long as it be not too much decayed, only that it possess the glamour of age, has entertained travellers of the long ago, and so made its little history. Then I humour my fancy. Many an old inn of this kind has a sort of magnetic attraction for the few who indulge in that despised article, sentiment: Stevenson confessed that he could never get over his hankering after a room in a wayside tavern in which to start his tale. There is romance about a lonely and once flourishing inn, however plain that inn may be—romance that clings to it as surely as ivy clings to a crumbling ruin. I feel that, in the days gone by, some eventful happening only waiting to be revealed must have taken place within the walls of such a one, some romance unrecorded yet. For real romance lingered long into the coaching age, but steam and electricity have killed it. Now
Romance beside his unstrung lute,
Lies stricken mute.
Had "The Sheffield Arms" a tale to tell? To me it looked as though it had, but then it must be remembered the poetry of a place lies as much in the eyes of the beholder as in the place itself; what is a romance in building to one is but bricks and mortar to another. We do not all see alike; a Turner, a David Cox, a Constable would each render the same landscape differently. Once when admiring an old ivy-covered Tudor manor-house I ventured to remark to a native on the beauty of it; he scornfully rejoined, "I see nought in it, it wants pulling down." The eye is but a lens; it is the mind that really sees and interprets.
"The Sheffield Arms" is well retired from the highway by a wide space of grassy ground whereon grows a flourishing clump of trees; on the roadside of this clump stands a large, two-pillared, crossed-top signpost; from this depends a swinging sign, in the good old-fashioned way as an inn-sign should—a sign that boldly proclaims the business of the house, so that even the rushing motorist could hardly pass it unheeded by. Without the needful sign one would hardly guess that the shy building was an inn, so little otherwise does it assert its purpose—and modesty becomes even a building!
There I pulled up beneath the welcome shade of the trees, sought the cool interior of the hostel and called for a glass of ale, for the day was hot, and mortal man is sometimes thirsty. The ale was good, and brought to mind the poet's query:
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Why, to provide good ale, of course, such as I sampled there that day. Then I got a-chatting with the landlord in hopes of gleaning something of the old inn's past story. I found much civility, but to my disappointment the landlord (whose name of Weller, by the way, was a reminder of Dickens) had scant information of the kind I sought. Truly he said it once had been a coaching house: I could have told him that.
OLD COACHING HOSTELRY, SHEFFIELD PARK, SUSSEX.