Moreover not a minute late.
The villagers around the gate
Were filled with wonder at his state,

And, promptly, though 'twas sabbath tide,
"Three cheers for squire--Hooray!" they cried....
Such was Sir Herbert Springett's ride.

* * * * *

Sad is the sequel, sad but true--
For while in sermon-time a few
Deep snores resounded from the pew

Reserved for squire, by others there
The tenth commandment (men declare)
Was being broken past repair:

For, thinking how they had to roam
Through weary wastes of sodden loam
Ere they could win to fire and home,

In spite of parson's fervid knocks
Upon his cushion orthodox,
They "coveted their neighbour's ox."

[Sidenote: OXEN OF THE HILLS]

Oxen are now rarely seen on the Sussex roads, but on the hill sides a
few of the farmers still plough with them; and may it be long before the
old custom is abandoned! There is no pleasanter or more peaceful sight
than--looking up--that of a wide-horned team of black oxen, smoking a
little in the morning air, drawing the plough through the earth, while
the ploughman whistles, and the ox-herd, goad in hand, utters his Saxon
grunts of incitement or reproof. The black oxen of the hills are of
Welsh stock, the true Sussex ox being red. The "kews," as their shoes
are called, may still be seen on the walls of a smithy here and there.
Shoeing oxen is no joke, since to protect the smith from their horns
they have to be thrown down; their necks are held by a pitchfork, and
their feet tied together.

Sussex roads were terrible until comparatively recent times. An old
rhyme credits "Sowseks" with "dirt and myre," and Dr. Burton, the author
of the _Iter Sussexiensis_, humorously found in it a reason why Sussex
people and beasts had such long legs. "Come now, my friend," he wrote,
in Greek, "I will set before you a sort of problem in Aristotle's
fashion:--Why is it that the oxen, the swine, the women, and all other
animals, are so long legged in Sussex? May it be from the difficulty of
pulling the feet out of so much mud by the strength of the ankle, that
the muscles get stretched, as it were, and the bones lengthened?"

[Sidenote: ROUGH ROADS]

When, in 1703, the King of Spain visited the Duke of Somerset at
Petworth he had the greatest difficulty in getting here. One of his
attendants has put on record the peril