CH. XXXVII

DAUGHTERS APPRENTICED

381

Thus, Jeremy Shoe, on January 13, 1604, took An Chamley, daughter of Edmund Chamley, deceased, apprentice "until she

come to xxj, in consideracon he receives some household stuffe to the valew of vjs viijd and is to be eased in not paying to the poore for iiij yeares to come." John Chelsham had a

382

THUNDERFIELD CASTLE

CHAP.

better bargain, for he agreed to take An Williams till she came to twenty-one, and had from her father" one mare and a colte in full satisfaction." Sometimes the apprentices were bound even longer. Susan Washfoord was bound to Bernard Humphry, and he undertook "to keep her sufficient meate, drink, and apparell until she come to the age of fower and twenty yeares." Susan's mother was a widow, and she paid to get rid of her daughter a cow and twenty shillings from the churchwardens.

Not many Surrey towns or villages can boast a family cricket eleven. Horley can. Eleven Watneys of Horley have played frequent matches against local clubs, and against eleven Wigans of Mortlake. Mr. F. S. Ashley-Cooper has collected some other instances of family cricket teams in the county. Eleven Bacons, a father and ten sons, played eleven postmen at Thornton Heath in 1895, but were beaten by the postmen. In 1877 eleven Mitchells played eleven Heaths on Shalford Common. The Heaths all belonged to the same family, but the Mitchells were only relations. Eleven Lovells played a match at Tulse Hill in 1901, but had much the worst of it; and, most famous name of all, twelve Cæsars of Godalming, three fathers and their nine sons, once played the Gentlemen of the District. The family luck was no better; they lost by 16 runs.

Hardly a mile to the south-east of Horley lies an enigmaThunderfield Castle. There is no castle; perhaps there never was one. A moat of brown water, splashed with white duckfeathers; an irregular mound beyond, thick with brushwood, and an ordinary set of farm-buildings through a gate to the side —that is all that is to be seen of the castle to-day. Was it an old British camp? Almost certainly not, nor a Roman camp. Mr. Malden, the Surrey historian, thinks it may have been one of the numberless castles built by the quarrelsome de Clares to annoy the equally quarrelsome de Warennes. Perhaps it was built in the days when castles sprang up like mushrooms; and perhaps it was demolished when demolitions were so frequent that one more or less was never noticed. It may have had a stone keep, but nobody can tell whether it had or not unless he excavates the ground within the moat, and that is a task which nobody, apparently, desires to try.

Another mile and a half along the west road from Horley

XXXVII

HORNE TO OUTWOOD

383

leads to Smallfield Place, once the manor-house of the Bysshe family, afterwards a farm-house, and now a private residence, with the Jacobean part of the old house apparently well worked in with the new. Further, by another mile, is the tiny village of Horne, not much more than a school, a church, and an old cottage or two. In such a simple, open-air little place it was attractive to see, on a hot September day when I was there, a ring of school-children being given their lessons out of doors in the shade. Horne is one of those little villages in which, when the busy, pleasant hum of the children's school first comes down the wind, you wonder where the children spring from. It does not look as if there were enough cottages within walking distance to provide a class, much less four or five standards—if that is the correct expression. Horne is, indeed, one of the most out-of-the-way little places in this part of the county. But it makes a satisfactory objective for a walk from Horley, and its small church contains at least two memorials of interest. One is an elaborate piece of wood-carving, painted to look like marble, which commemorates John Goodwine, who died when James I was king; the other is an ingenious model of the church itself, as it stood before `restoration. The restorers altered the interior pretty thoroughly; but the old church must have been a curious building. It had a long, large window on the roof, especially let in to throw light on the hymn-books of the musicians in the gallery. How was such a window cleaned?

Walking in this part of Surrey, which is chiefly pasture, is apt to be a little monotonous, without a good view. One of the prettiest views near Horne is at Outwood, a little more than a mile to the north-west, on the way back to Horley. Outwood Common is delightful. Two great windmills, black and white, spread sails to the blowing air; below them, black and white like the mills, pigs nose quietly over the short grass, and geese strut cackling. To the north, beyond rich and tranquil fields, lie the grey-green wooded hills by Bletchingley and Nutfield.

Horne is pretty near the centre of the country of the Burstow foxhounds, which stretches from Leigh, the other side of Horley, to Edenbridge in Kent. Two good stories are told of White, the Burstow huntsman. One is of an extraordinary jump, singular not for its height or the width of ground.

XXXVII

STORIES OF HUNTING

385

covered, but for its daring and adroitness. It was on one of the best days the Burstow ever had, when they killed a fox at Crawley after an hour and ten minutes' run almost without a check; and went on to find another fox near New Chapel Green, which hounds ate in Kent at half-past five, nobody knows quite where, so bad was the light. Nearly at the end of the second run White found himself on the edge of a narrow, deep ghyll, with a stream at the bottom, crossed by an overgrown footpath which went down to the stream and up again by flights of stone steps opposite each other. Riding down two or three of the steps, he took a standing jump over the stream and landed on the top steps the other side. On another occasion his daring was of a different kind; he did not know where he was riding. Hounds had crossed the golf links on Earlswood Common, and White, close behind them, was riding straight for one of the greens. A member of the hunt shouted to warn him, but White, who had not the slightest notion what was meant, galloped straight over the green, turning round to point at the hole and shout to the hunt, "Ware hole! ware hole!"

Burstow itself, hidden among pines, has named the hounds, but has not a large part in Surrey history. One of its rectors, the Rev. J. Flamsteed, who is buried in the church, was the first Astronomer Royal. Charles II made him that, when he was twenty-nine; nine years later he took orders, and went on astronomising till his death. Newton helped him and quarrelled with him over the publication of his observations; but it was something, even in the days of Charles II, to be made Astronomer Royal when Newton was alive.

Three miles on the other side of Horley lies Charlwood, once a wholly restful little village, but of late years stiffened and discoloured by the building contractor. The centre street of the village, near the church, is quaintly arched by a pair of elm trees, cropped and pollarded to meet overhead. ` Elms are not often selected for experiments in topiary. But Charlwood has more than one feature peculiar to itself, or at all events to the district. The village lies deep in Wealden clay, which can grow luxuriant roses, but which in days when Surrey roads were less well laid made getting about in the winter rains a matter of difficulty for those who could not drive. So those who walked made their own paths, which can be seen

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