LITMIR.BIZ

CHAPTER II.

       COOMBE LORRAINE.

       Table of Contents

      “How came that old house up there?” is generally the first question put by a Londoner to his Southdown friend leading him through the lowland path. “It must have a noble view; but what a position, and what an aspect!”

      “The house has been there long enough to get used to it,” is his host’s reply; “and it is not built, as they are where you live, of the substance of a hat.”

      That large old-fashioned house, which looks as if it had been much larger, stands just beneath the crest of a long-backed hill in a deep embrasure. Although it stands so high, and sees much less of the sun than the polestar, it is not quite so weather-beaten as a stranger would suppose. It has some little protection, and a definite outline for its grounds, because it was built on an old and extensive settlement of the chalk; a thing unheeded in early times, but now very popular and attractive, under the name of “landslip.” Of these there are a good many still to be traced on the sides of the Sussex hills, caused (as the learned say) by the shifting of the green-sand, or silt, which generally underlies the more stable chalk. Few, however, of them are so strongly marked and bold as this one, which is known as “Coombe Lorraine.” It is no mere depression or irregular subsidence, but a sheer vertical drop, which shows as if a broad slice had been cut out from the chine to the base of the highland.

      Here, in the time of William Rufus, Roland de Lorraine, having a grant from him, or from the Conqueror, and trusting the soil to slide no more, or ignorant that it had ever slidden, built himself a dwelling-place to keep a look-out on his property. This abode, no doubt, was fitted for warlike domesticity, being founded in the fine old times when every gentleman was bound to build himself a castle.

      It may have been that a little jealousy of his friend, De Braose (who had taken a larger grant of land, although he was of newer race, and had killed fewer men than Sir Roland), led this enterprising founder to set up his tower so high. At any rate, he settled his Penates so commandingly, that if Bramber Castle had been in sight, he might have looked down its chimneys as freely as into his villeins’ sheepcotes. Bramber Castle, however, happened to be round the corner.

      This good knight’s end, according to the tradition of the family, was not so thoroughly peaceful as a life of war should earn. One gentle autumnal evening, Sir Roland and his friend and neighbour, William de Braose, were riding home to a quiet supper, both in excellent temper and spirits, and pleasant contempt of the country. The harvest-moon was rising over breadths of corn in grant to them, and sheep and cattle tended by their villeins, once the owners. Each congratulated the other upon tranquil seizin, and the goodwill of the neighbourhood; when suddenly their way was stopped by a score of heavy Englishmen.

      These, in their clumsy manner, sued no favour, nor even justice; only to be trodden down with fairness and show of reason.

      “Ye shall be trodden all alike,” De Braose shouted fiercely, having learned a good deal of English from the place he lived in; “clods are made to be trodden down. Out of my road, or I draw my sword!”

      The men turned from him to Sir Roland, who was known to be kind of heart.

      “Ye do the wrong thing to meet me thus,” he answered in his utmost English; “the thing, that is to say I hearken; but not with this violence.”

      Speaking thus he spurred his horse, and the best of the men made way for him. But one of them had an arrow straining on the cord, with intent to shoot—as he said to the priest at the gallows—De Braose, and him only. As the two knights galloped off, he let his arrow, in the waning of the light, fly after them; and it was so strongly sped that it pierced back-harness, and passed through the reins of Roland de Lorraine. Thus he died; and his descendants like to tell the story.

      It is not true, although maintained by descendants of De Braose, that he was the man that was shot, and the knight who ran away Sir Roland. The pious duties rendered by the five brave monks from Fécamp were for the soul of Sir Roland, as surely as the arrow was for the body of De Braose. But after eight hundred years almost, let the benefit go between them.

      Whichever way this may have chanced, in an age of unsettled principles, sure it is that the good knight died, either then or afterwards. Also, that a man was hanged at a spot still shown in his behalf, and that he felt it such an outrage on his sense of justice, after missing his proper shot, that even now he is often seen, when the harvest-moon is lonely, straining a long bow at something, but most careful not to shoot.

      These, however, are mere legends, wherewith we have nought to do. And it would have been as well to leave them in their quiet slumber, if it could have been shown without them how the house was built up there. Also one may fairly fancy that a sweet and gallant knight may have found his own vague pleasure in a fine and ample view. Regarding which matter we are perhaps a little too hard on our ancestors; presuming that they never owned such eyes as ours for “scenery,” because they knew the large impossibility of describing it.