rgin of a large pond, the
property of Mr. W. Marshall; the reverberation of the sound, coming off
the water, is peculiarly striking."

Sixty years ago this sheet of water had an additional attraction. Says
Mr. Knox, "During the months of May and June, 1843, an osprey was
observed to haunt the large ponds near Bolney. After securing a fish he
used to retire to an old tree on the more exposed bank to devour it, and
about the close of evening was in the habit of flying off towards the
north-west, sometimes carrying away a prize in his talons if his sport
had been unusually successful, as if he dreaded being disturbed at his
repast during the dangerous hours of twilight. Having been shot at
several times without effect, his visits to these ponds became gradually
less frequent, but the surrounding covers being unpreserved, and the
bird itself too wary to suffer a near approach, he escaped the fate of
many of his congeners, and even re-appeared with a companion early in
the following September, to whom he seemed to have imparted his salutary
dread of man--his mortal enemy--for during the short time they remained
there it was impossible to approach within gunshot of either of them."

The indirect road from Bolney to Hand Cross, through Warninglid and
Slaugham (parallel with the coaching road), is superb, taking us again
into the iron country and very near to Leonardslee, which we have
already seen.

[Sidenote: THE MAGNIFICENT COVERTS]

The glory of Slaugham Place is no more; but one visible sign of it is
preserved in Lewes, in the Town Hall, in the shape of its old staircase.
Slaugham Place was the seat of the Covert family, whose estates
extended, says tradition, "from Southwark to the Sea," and, says the
more exact Horsfield, from Crawley to Hangleton, above Brighton.
Slaugham Park used to cover 1200 acres, the church being within it.
Perhaps nowhere in Sussex is the change so complete as here, and within
recent times too, for Horsfield quotes, in 1835, the testimony of "an
aged person, whom the present rector buried about twenty-five years
back, who used to relate, that he remembered when the family at Slaugham
Park, or Place, consisted of seventy persons." Horsfield continues, in a
footnote (the natural receptacle of many of his most interesting
statements):--"The name of the aged person alluded to was Harding, who
died at nearly 100. According to his statement, the family were so
numerous, they kept constantly employe