XXXV TAKING GIBRALTAR 371 slab which marked his grave was moved and lost when the church was enlarged. He was forty-four when with Captain Jumper and Captain Hicks he led his men against the redoubt, and he was as brilliant a fighter as he was a poor speller. I quote from a letter he wrote describing the siege and assault to his friend Sir Richard Haddock, Comptroller of the Navy, a day or two after the action: "There was three small ships in the old mold, one of which annoyed our camp by firing amongst them. One having about 10 guns, lying close to 372 SPELLING EXCUSED CH. XXXV the mold, and just under a great bastion at the north corner of the towne, I proposed to Sir George the burning her in the night. He liked itt: accordingly ordered what boats I would have to my assistance: and about 12 at night I did itt effectually, wth the loss of but one man, and 5 or 6 wounded. July 23.-At 4 this morning, adm1 Byng began wth his ships to cannonade, a Dutch rear-adm1 and 5 or 6 ships of thairs along wth him, wch made a noble noise, being within half shott of the town. My ship, not being upon service, I desired Sir George to make me his aducon to carry his commands, from tyme to tyme, to adm1 Byng, which he did. P.S. This is rite all in a hurry, sir, yt I hope you'le excuse me. The aide-de-camp had not forgotten the concluding formula of the schoolboy complete letter-writer. Beyond Carshalton is Sutton, not less exuberant than Croydon. The Cock Hotel of coaching days has been rebuilt; the railway is convenient for Epsom or London. CHAPTER XXXVI CHALDON TO THE DOWNS Coulsdon. A giant Christian prince.-Chaldon. -The Ladder of Life.The Brig of Whinney Moor.-Chipstead. -Merstham.-A Wizard Rector.-Addington.-The little churches.-Horne Tooke's Di versions. It is possible to escape from Croydon's railway-stations. You can push out from its ringing streets into green and quiet country, and find little old churches within a mile or two of the railway, as undisturbed as if no railway were yet running. You may leave the line at Purley, and within an hour's walk find yourself in the wind on the downs, among Anglo-Saxon barrows and immemorial yews; you may even be able (though not without thought) to exclude from a generous view of hill and valley the enormous lunatic asylums which fate and County Councils have piled and multiplied in this part of Surrey. There is a strip of country lying south of Purley in which you cannot get more than a mile and a half or so from the railway, but which contains tiny hamlets and lonely roads. Purley and Kenley will one day come out to Coulsdon, perhaps, but Coulsdon's day is not yet. The village itself is nothing more than a cottage or two with a church. But the road to Coulsdon opens on broad slopes of grass and plough, bordered with a line of yews-an ancient trackway, perhaps. Such a line, or rather lines, for there are several along the sides of the downs a little further south, would certainly be claimed as evidence of a "pilgrims' way" if they ran east and west between Guildford, say, and Dorking. Fields with such noble hedges to define them have their own air of wildness and age; it is easy enough, even with Purley slate roofs hardly a mile away, 374 THE LADDER OF LIFE CHAP. to fancy partridges calling across those open spaces. Coulsdon, indeed, was once celebrated for its game. Aubrey tells us that in the parish there was "a large coney-warren belonging to the Desbouveries." They, for many years under Stuarts and Georges, were lords of the manor. From Coulsdon one may walk to Chaldon over Farthing Down. The horizon changes, but Farthing Down itself remains high and free, smooth with short down grass, and dinted with the hoofs of galloping horses. Croydon and Purley send many riders abroad on Saturdays and Sundays. But Farthing Down is peopled with other older forms. Along the ridge, bordering the ancient trackways, lies a line of barrows. They were opened in 1872 by Mr. John Wickham Flower; some were found untouched, and contained perfect skeletons. In one grave lay the bones of a great lady; buried with her was a beautiful wooden drinking-cup, its staves fastened by bronze bands of an intricate Runic pattern of coiled snakes. Another grave held the skeleton of a warrior giant, his sword lying across him and the boss of his shield upon his foot. Mr. Flower thinks he can add a name. Coulsdon is a corruption of Cuthredesdune, and perhaps Cuthred, an Anglo-Saxon prince, lies buried here with his family. Cuthred, son of Cwichelm, and grandson of Cynegils, the first Christian king of Wessex, was baptised in 639 at Dorchester. Farthing Down stretches for nearly three miles north and south, and under its southern slope lies the little village of Chaldon. Chaldon church holds the most remarkable wallpainting in the country. The "Ladder of Life,” or “Ladder of Salvation," is the subject, and it occupies nearly the whole of the west wall of the church. In red and white and yellow ochre paint you are shown the torments of the damned, the salvation of heaven, the trampling of Satan. A ladder rises through the middle; up it the poor souls of men struggle to the joys above; some tumble headlong; a demon picks off others with a pitchfork and sets them aside to burn or boil. An enormous dog eats a woman's hand; in life she had thrown to dogs what she should have given to the poor. A usurer painted without eyes, for usurers could not weep, sits among flames; devils drive pitchforks into his head, moneybags hang round his neck, he counts and swallows red hot coins. Other hapless souls, condemned to walk a bridge of spikes, carry burdens over a thin XXXVI BRIG OF DREAD 375 plank like a saw set on edge. Above is a nimbus of clouds, and above the nimbus, the weighing of souls. The archangel Michael balances the souls in great scales; a fiend tries to make them kick the beam. On the other side is the Harrowing of Hell. Hell is the mouth of a monstrous devil; Christ advances with the cross and banner, and thrusts the wood of the cross into the devil's mouth. The souls rise up delivered from purgatory; above them, a flying angel floats with a scroll. Mr. J. G. Waller, writing in the Surrey Archaeological Collections, explains most of the painting, but has hardly a guess for the scroll. "The heavens depart, as it were a scroll rolled together;" Mr. Waller does not mention the text which to the layman seems obvious but the expert may have reasons against it. The punishment of the Bridge-the walking over a sharp edge, set with spikes or narrow as a hair-is one of the oldest things of all the religions. The Chinese had it, in the distant Eastern ages, and Mr. Waller, in the Collections, prints verses which show it surviving in Yorkshire in 1624. There was a Yorkshire tradition that a person after death must pass over Whinney Moor; and at a funeral it was the custom for a woman to come and chant verses over the corpse. These are an extract : When thou from hence doest pass away, To Whinney Moor thou com'st at last, And Christ receive thy sawle. From Whinney Moor that thou mayest pass, Every night and awle, To Brig of dread thou com'st at last, And Christ receive thy sawle. From Brig of dread, na brader than a thread, To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last, And Christ receive thy sawle. East of Chaldon is Caterham, west is Chipstead and southwest is Merstham, each two miles or so away as the crow flies and something more as the road runs, and each with a railway station. Caterham once was a valley; Aubrey wrote of it: “In this parish are many pleasant little vallies, stored with wild thyme, sweet marjoram, barnell, boscage, and beeches." |