ark, a superb domain over the brow of Harting's Down, and of the
Carylls of Lady Holt, of whom we shall see more directly. The east
window is a peculiarly cheerful one, and the door of South Harting
church is kept open, as every church door should be, but as too many in
Sussex are not.

In the churchyard, beneath a shed, are the remains of two tombs, with
recumbent stone figures, now in a fragmentary state. At the church gates
are the old village stocks.

[Sidenote: MRS. JONES' MULYGRUBES]

Harting has a place in literature, for one of the Carylls was Pope's
friend, John (1666-1736), a nephew of the diplomatist and dramatist.
Pope's Caryll, who suggested _The Rape of the Lock_, lived at Lady Holt
at West Harting (long destroyed) and also at West Grinstead, where, as
we shall see, the poem was largely written. Mr. H. D. Gordon, rector of
Harting for many years, wrote a history of his parish in 1877: a very
interesting, gossipy book; where we may read much of the Caryll family,
including passages from their letters--how Lady Mary Caryll had the kind
impulse to take one of the parson's nine daughters to France to educate
and befriend, but was so thoughtless as to transform into a pretty
Papist; how Lady Mary disliked Mrs. Jones, the steward's wife; and many
other matters. I quote a passage from a letter of Lady Mary's about Mrs.
Jones, showing that human nature was not then greatly different from
what it is to-day:--"Mr. Joans and his fine Madam came down two days
before your birthday and expected to lye in the house, but as I
apprehended the consequence of letting them begin so, I made an excuse
for want of roome by expecting company, and sent them to Gould's [Arthur
Gould married Kate Caryll, and lived at Harting Place], where they
stayed two nights. I invited them the next day to dinner and they came,
but the day following Madam huff'd (I believe), for she went away to
Barnard's, and wou'd not so much as see the desert [dessert]; however, I
don't repent it, he has been here at all the merryment, and I believe
you'll find it better to keep them at a civil distance than other ways,
for she seems a high dame and not very good humoured, for she has been
sick ever since of the mulygrubes." Mrs. Jones soon afterwards succumbed
either to the mulygrubes or a worse visitation. Lady Mary thus broke the
news:--"Mr. Jones's wife dyed on Sunday, just as she lived, an
Independent, and wou'd have no parson with her, because she sayd