Brighton painter in water colours, Mr. Clem Lambert, who
has worked much at Rodmell, the spirit of the river valleys of Sussex is
reproduced with extraordinary fidelity and the minimum loss of
freshness.

[Illustration: _Rodmell._]

Horsfield, rather than have no poetical blossom to deck his page at the
mention of the Lewes river, quotes a passage from "The Task":

Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted.

Dr. Johnson's remark that one green field is like another green field,
might, one sees, be extended to rivers, for Cowper was, of course,
describing the Ouse at Olney.

The first village out of Lewes on the Newhaven road is Kingston (one of
three Sussex villages of this name), on the side of the hill, once the
property of Sir Philip Sidney. Next is Iford, with straw blowing free
and cows in its meadows; next Rodmell, whence Whiteway Bottom and Breaky
Bottom lead to the highlands above: next Southease, where the only
bridge over the Ouse between Lewes and Newhaven is to be crossed: a
little village famous for a round church tower, of which Sussex knows
but three, one other at St. Michael's, Lewes, and one at Piddinghoe, the
next village.

[Sidenote: SOUTHEASE THIRST]

The Southease rustics were once of independent mind, as may be gathered
from the following extract from the "Manorial Customs of
Southease-with-Heighton, near Lewes," in 1623: "Every reaper must have
allowed him, at the cost of the lord or his farmer, one drinkinge in the
morninge of bread and cheese, and a dinner at noone consistinge of
rostmeate and other good victualls, meete for men and women in harvest
time; and two drinkinges in the afternoone, one in the middest of their
afternoone's work and the other at the ende of their day's work, and
drinke alwayes duringe their work as neede shall require."

[Sidenote: PIDD'NHOO]

Telscombe, the capital of these lonely Downs and as good an objective as
the walker who sets out from Brighton, Rottingdean, or Lewes to climb
hills can ask, is a charming little shy hamlet which nothing can harm,
snugly reposing in its combe, above Piddinghoe. Piddinghoe (pronounced
Pidd'nhoo) is a compact village at the foot of the hill; but it has
suffered in picturesqueness and character by its proximity to the
commercial enterprise of Newhaven. Hussey, in his _Notes on the Churches
of ..