some spirit, but nowhere in England is there anything to
compare with the thoroughness of Lewes.

[Illustration: _The Ouse at South Street, Lewes._]

[Sidenote: THE LEWES MARTYRS]

[Sidenote: RICHARD WOODMAN]

To some extent Lewes may consider that she has reason for the display,
for on June 22, 1557, ten men and women were tied to the stake and
burned to death in the High Street for professing a faith obnoxious to
Queen Mary. Chief of these courageous enthusiasts were Richard Woodman
and Derrick Carver. Woodman, a native of Buxted, had settled at
Warbleton, where he was a prosperous iron master. All went well until
Mary's accession to the throne, when the rector of Warbleton, who had
been a Protestant under Edward VI., turned, in Foxe's words, "head to
tayle" and preached "clean contrary to that which he had before taught."
Woodman's protests carried him to imprisonment and the stake.
Altogether, Lewes saw the death of sixteen martyrs.

[Illustration: _The Ouse at Piddinghoe._]

CHAPTER XXVII

THE OUSE VALLEY

The two Ouses--Three round towers--Thirsty
labourers--Telscombe--The hills and the sea--Mrs. Marriott Watson's
Down poem--Newhaven--A Sussex miller--Seaford's past--A politic
smuggler--Electioneering ingenuity--Bishopstone.

The road from Lewes to the sea runs along the edge of the Ouse levels,
just under the bare hills, passing through villages that are little more
than homesteads of the sheep-farmers, albeit each has its church--Iford,
Rodmell, Southease, Piddinghoe--and so to Newhaven, the county's only
harbour of any importance since the sea silted up the Shoreham bar. You
may be as much out of the world in one of these minute villages as
anywhere twice the distance from London; and the Downs above them are
practically virgin soil. The Brighton horseman or walker takes as a rule
a line either to Lewes or to Newhaven, rarely adventuring in the
direction of Iford Hill, Highdole Hill, or Telscombe village, which
nestles three hundred feet high, over Piddinghoe. By day the waggons ply
steadily between Lewes and the port, but other travellers are few. Once
evening falls the world is your own, with nothing but the bleat of sheep
and the roar of the French boat trains to recall life and civilisation.

[Sidenote: THE OUSE VALLEY]

The air of this valley is singularly clear, producing on fine days a
blue effect that is, I believe, peculiar to the district. In the
sketches of a