‘Gladys! Copper!’ At the rear of the building, in the last stall, she found them and threw an arm round each of their necks.
The Customs Officers worked all night loading the illegal goods into an official wagon to be taken into safekeeping then auctioned off. Mary slept in the hay alongside her animals and in the morning rode Gladys homewards, leading Copper in a halter.
Meanwhile, in Falmer, Charlie was sitting on a fence beside the road. He took out the last of the apples Mary had given him. He was about to start munching his way through it, when he saw a tired looking young woman trudging towards him. Her dress was old and faded as was her bonnet. She looked as if she had walked through the night.
‘My dear!’ said Charlie. ‘Please accept this! The apple falls when ripe!’
The young woman snatched it from his hand without a word of thanks and took a big bite.
A group of riders came around the corner. They were Customs Officers. Their leader greeted the pair.
‘Good morning, Sir, good morning, Miss. Have either of you seen a smuggler disguised as a woman travelling this road?’
The poet shook his head. The young woman munched her apple.
‘Just a pair of tramps,’ muttered one of the officers. ‘Let’s go.’
But as they reined round their horses, Charlie saw something that made him leap to his feet. ‘He’s here! He’s here! And he’s wearing stolen boots!’
Charlie had only seen the rounded toes of the boots, but he would have recognised them anywhere. They were Mary’s and had belonged to her father. The young woman tried to escape through a hedge, but Charlie was up so fast his top hat flew off. He caught the rascal by the apron strings as an officer put his gun in the small of his back.
‘Where’s Mary?’ shouted the old poet. But the smuggling horse thief only spat.
It was Charlie who led the officers to the little farm south of Piltdown and north of Isfield, where Mary received her reward of £500. She used it to breed horses but she never sold Gladys or Copper. She and her brothers built Charlie a house with a desk and books and writing paper to last a lifetime. Although he spent many happy hours scratching away with his pen or sitting beside the fire, he was often on the road reciting his lines of poetry and tipping his threadbare top hat to the empty pockets of passers-by, but now it didn’t matter; his pockets were full of apples and pennies. He considered himself very lucky and as he liked to say:
An ounce of luck is better than a pound of gold, but if gold comes your way then who’s to complain?
8
A Sackful of Pig
• Beeding Hill, Steyning •
Fairy: Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
Are not you he?
Puck: Thou speakest aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
It’s me again, Puck, to rhyme with luck and muck. I love horses: carthorses, racehorses, horseradish. My little brother Flick – that’s Flick to rhyme with quick and trick – loves them even more than me. He’s always whispering in their ear to tell them where to find marigolds or to warn them rain is coming.
Human beings don’t understand us. They call us fairies. They think we live in the bells of bluebells or the gloves of foxgloves. We don’t live anywhere! We’re as free as the wind or a wave on the sea. They think because we’re small we must have small brains. They talk to us like we’re babies, all ‘coochie coo’ or ‘iddy bid’. I speak every language of this world. I can zip to Zanzibar in a second, to Bora Bora in a blink, but I happen to like Sussex so quite often I’m here. But don’t count on me. I can’t say when I’ll appear and I can’t say why – I just like to fly.
One thing I do know: I prefer animals to humans and horses to cars.
Back in the days when carthorses set the speed of life, I had some good friends: Violet, Jim, Lion and Traveller. They would plod along the lanes, jingling their harnesses and dipping their great heads to munch at snapdragons. They worked all day pulling heavy carts full of beer barrels or hay bales or anything that would make their owners money. They belonged to two carters who couldn’t sing a song between them. They didn’t feed the horses enough either and for that we blew wheat-dust up their noses to make them sneeze and kicked their hair to make it itch.
We secretly looked after the horses. We gathered them the sweetest hay, pale green or light gold, and threw away the rumpty stuff the carters gave them. We fetched the purest rainwater, carrying it in walnut shells and tipping it into their buckets. Our big friends grew strong and so shiny we could slide down their necks and dance upon their broad backs.
One midnight, we were working, polishing dust off the hay and carrying water, when one of the carters came in. Generally, we Little Folk rinse ourselves with black hellebore root and sunflower juice to be invisible to humans, but since the carters usually snored heavily till sunrise, we’d got slack. One of them threw open the door and slapped his sides with laughter.
‘Oochie, coochie, if it isn’t a little fairy wairy! Shall I fetch an incy, wincy, iddy, biddy saucer of milk?’
That was just too much blish-blash.* Flick and I were off and away. We flitted to India to feed watermelons to elephant calves.
A year had passed by the time we returned and we went straight to find Violet, Jim, Lion and Traveller. They were trying to graze in a dry ditch, so thin you could see their ribs. We were gathering hay and rainwater when we caught sight of the carters on Beeding Hill. They were finishing off a rabbit they had roasted over the fire and discussing their misfortune.
‘We’ve been poor ever since those horses grew so thin they couldn’t pull a hand-cart. What we need is a prize-winning pig to sell in exchange for a fat purse.’
‘You wouldn’t be thinking of that fine Wessex Saddleback sow they’ve just inherited at old Dip Farm?’
‘I am. Let’s steal her tonight and take her to Thakeham Fair tomorrow.’
‘While we’re at it, we can sell those useless horses for dog meat. Ow! Dratted midges.’
They slapped their own heads and faces as Flick pinched their ears and I pulled their hair. We were kicking, spitting cross, but we stayed with the carters as they walked through the woods, across the track and into Dip Farm. The barns had holes in the roofs and the paint of the farmhouse was peeling. The carters crept into the pigpen with the biggest, strongest sack they could find and a satchel full of acorns. Carefully they hitched open the gate and laid a trail of acorns out into the yard. The pig came quietly, scooping up each little snack with a grunty, sniffly whiffle. She followed the thieves away from the barns, across the track, through the woods to the bottom of Beeding Hill.
It had worked a treat; the two carters began to punch each other with delight. They grabbed the sow and squeezed her into the sack, then heaved her, squealing, onto their shoulders and set off.
She was big and she was heavy and the men weren’t halfway up the hill before they were puffing and sweating. They dropped the sack on the ground beside a big rock.
While they were bent double, catching their breath, I untied the mouth of the sack and let the pig out, ushering her behind the rock, as Flick leaped in to take her place, muttering:
Flick be as big as a saddleback,
Heavy as lead in the carter’s sack.
The carter and his brother hoisted their load again and began to stagger up the slope.
I ran along behind. After a few feet I shouted out, ‘Flick, Flick, where are you?’
Flick answered loud and clear in his shrill voice:
In a sack,
Pick-a-back,*
Riding up Beeding Hill.
‘A talking pig!’ screamed the carters. They dropped the sack. One circled left, the other circled right until they crashed into each other, fell over, and rolled down the hill into a big pile of horse manure.
Flick climbed out of the sack saying, ‘Huma
ns are all the same! I bet you a penny the old couple who own Dip Farm are no better than those carters.’
I can never resist a wager so I replied, ‘I bet you a sixpence they are!’
At daybreak, we herded the sow back to the farm along with the horses to test the old couple. The farmer was sitting on the step having a quiet moment before he started his day. Flick leaped onto the end of his pipe, gave a bow, then jumped down onto the ground, waiting for his reaction. The farmer merely nodded and carried on looking at the horizon. I tried a little jig in the dust of the yard but all he said was ‘Morning,’ from the corner of his mouth. Then he tapped his pipe on the door frame and ambled over to the animals. The farmer’s wife hobbled out of the kitchen with a bucket of leftovers for the pig. When she caught sight of us she simply smiled and said, ‘Nice to see you, Good Folk,’ then crossed the yard to the sow. ‘G’wan Ivy,’ she huffed gently and the pig waddled back to her pen.
The farmer patted the necks of Violet, Jim, Lion and Traveller. ‘You four look like you could do with some proper rest and good feed.’ As he led them into the stable, he began to sing gruffly:
I am a brisk and bonny lad and free from care and strife,
And sweetly as the hours pass I love a country life,
At Thakeham Fair I’m often there, midst pleasure to be seen,
Though poor, I am contented and as happy as a Queen.
It was true: apart from the sow, the couple were very poor, but still the horses were each given a net of the sweetest hay and a bucket of well water.
I turned to Flick, surprised but gleeful at winning my bet:
Sixpence lost, sixpence lost,
Who’d have guessed that kindness costs!
It wasn’t long before our horse friends were gleaming and strong once more and with our help, Dip Farm prospered. Ivy had litter after litter of squealing piglets and Violet, Jim, Lion and Traveller helped the farmer plough the fields. When the harvest was brought in, the new barns were filled from stone floor to wooden roof.
And in the time of harvest, how cheerfully we go,
Some with hooks and some with crooks and some with scythes to mow.
And when our corn is free from harm we have not far to roam,
We’ll all away to celebrate the welcome Harvest Home.
‘Brisk and Bonny Lad’, from the Copper Family Songbook
* blish-blash – idle talk.
* pick-a-back – to carry.
9
The Lychpole Highwayman
• Lychpole •
No I ain’t seen Turpin pass this way,
Neither do I want to see him this long day,
For he robbed my wife all of ten pounds,
A silver snuffbox and a new gown,
For I’m the hero, the Turpin hero,
I am the great Dick Turpin ho.
Jim Copper remembered this song being sung by Fred
‘Nobby’ Earle, a farm labourer of Rottingdean
To go from Lancing to Steyning, you take the A27 and the A283, but a few hundred years ago the only road was cut into the grass and chalk of the Downs. Today we journey by car, but back then the main way to travel was on horseback, in a carriage, or on foot.
At night, this lonely road was preyed upon by a highwayman so pitiless it was said his heart was as hard as downland flint, and that’s how he came be known as Flint.
He was rich. By day, a gentleman in silk breeches and a waistcoat with silver buttons; by night, a robber with tricorn hat, eye mask and cloak the colour of darkness. His horse, Nero, was also black.
A lord and lady with their children, covered in furs and half asleep, might start awake as they heard the coachman’s cry and felt the carriage horses pull up sharply on the lonely road. Looking through the window they would see Nero pawing at the grass with a foreleg, Flint astride him, brandishing his pistol that fired bullets of lead. Flint’s voice was like a millstone grinding grain as he flung open the carriage door:
Lead for you, or gold for me?
Speak now, sharpish, what’ll it be?
All inside would deliver whatever he demanded, choosing to give up their riches and keep their lives.
Then Flint was off. He knew the Downs like his own skin and loved them like a mother. He leaned close into Nero’s neck, galloping fast as a gunshot through the gorse.
Time after time, they eluded the king’s officers who were always only a few heartbeats behind, combing the roads. As they passed within feet of him, hidden in the folds of a ridge or concealed by a stand of windblown trees, Flint clutched his ribs with one hand and beat the air with the other, his mouth wide open with silent laughter.
Being hated by the whole of Sussex made Flint’s eyes glitter and gave him the edge he needed to run the nightly race he always won. The frightened pleas of those he robbed thrilled him. It was a pleasure to hear from a great lady that the ring he ripped from her was a gift from her grandmother. It delighted him to learn that the watch he wrestled from a lord had cost a hundred guineas. He chuckled that the coins he snatched from children were their carefully saved pennies.
Flint enjoyed being a celebrity, but it couldn’t last forever.
One wet night, he rode Nero off a bank down into the road in front of a carriage. The driver was so startled that he braked too hard, tipping the coach on to its side and blocking the road. The wheels were still spinning in the air when Flint heard shouting and pounding hooves behind him. The King’s Officers were closing in. He urged Nero forward to get around the stricken carriage, but the verge was peppered with shards. The horse trod his forefoot on a stone and shied. Flint kicked him on, but could tell from the uneven rhythm of Nero’s stride and his dropped shoulder that he was lame. He jumped to the ground and ran towards a gully, riding boots slithering on the damp grass, but the mounted King’s Officers were faster.
The highwayman fell heavily. His swag bag flew up into the air. When the officers retrieved it from the mud they found a silver teaspoon for a christening, gold teeth and the jewelled dagger used to extract them, necklaces, coins, earrings and all manner of jewellery taken at pistol point from the rich, the poor, the deserving and, more often than not, the undeserving.
Hands bound, Flint was led through the cold rain to the gallows tree by Lychpole farm. As the guards marched him forward, he ducked low, loosening their grip on his shoulders. He kicked the legs out from under the man on his left, barged the man on his right into a ditch and ran until he heard the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked behind him. He turned. Smirking, the Captain sat high on his horse looking down at Flint, gun aimed at his head:
Lead for you, or hanging tree?
Speak now, sharpish, what’ll it be?
Although he knew what awaited him, Flint smirked back. ‘You think you’re the law in this place?’ He shook his head. ‘You can take my horse, you can take my life, but there is an older, greater power than you in these Downs,’ he turned his face up towards the sky. The rain ran off his ears and chin as he shouted at the rumbling thunder: ‘Prince of Darkness! Hear me! I offer you my soul! In return, let me be a highwayman forever!’
Only Flint heard the Devil’s voice. It thrummed, like a hornet in his head. ‘I will take your soul! For as long as you are hated, you may terrorise these roads. But should anyone ever show you love, our bargain will be broken.’
When Flint was hanged, dazzling lightning set fire to the gallows tree before the rain put it out with a hiss. Flint’s body was buried without a prayer, face down in the road, his head pointing west. When the sun rose, there was a pile of earth and the grave was empty.
That night, a priest was riding home, thinking about the wine he would have on reaching his armchair. His pony reared. In the middle of the road, a man with eyes glowing beneath his tricorn hat rasped:
Lead for you, or gold for me?
Speak now, sharpish, what’ll it be?
When the priest came to, in the dew he found his purse was empty.
There
’s only one thing worse than a highwayman and that’s a phantom highwayman. The ghost of Flint held up men, women, children, the elderly, the rich, the poor and everyone in between. Many fainted, others emptied pockets as they ran. One evening, rather than give up his passengers, a coachman galloped his carriage at Flint and passed right through him! Spooked, the horses ran off the road, dragging the coach over the lip of a hollow. The travellers were scattered all over the ground like salt from a shaker. After that, no one travelled the road again at night.
In Steyning, a girl called Cara had been caring for her sick mother for weeks. Her father was away, fighting for Queen Anne in the Americas, and the girl was her mother’s only help. The doctor told her to ease the fever by making a tonic of the yarrow plant which grew outside the town. Over the long period of her mother’s illness, Cara had to go further and further afield to find the plant. She returned later and later and her mother grew more and more angry at having to wait for her medicine.
‘Look at the time! Is it fun playing hopscotch while your mother suffers?’ Cara let the complaints wash off her. She knew her mother was in pain.
Eventually, her search for yarrow took Cara so far away that she found herself walking home after dusk. Two small flames were coming towards her. She wondered what they might be. Was it a gentleman smoking two pipes at once? No, it was a pair of red eyes beneath the tricorn hat of a man with a gun.
Sussex Folk Tales for Children Page 5
