HISTORY OF HARTING. 195 



that he prized highly the Lady Holt venison. But 

 alas ! the Park and its red deer were but the fair 

 outward show of their owner's misery. That rent day 

 the sheriff's poundage (represented even at Harting 

 Pond by Mr. Rook's presence) came to 26 us. Six 

 years later the good Petersfield folk were avenging 

 their attack upon Caryll by setting on the lawyers 

 against themselves; and Hunt wrote, March 7, 1753 : 

 " As news, Mr. Gibbon (the father of the historian, 

 living at Mapledurham, a frequent correspondent of 

 Carylls) and Mr. Joliffe are going to law about 

 Petersfield great Pond, each claiming it as their own ; 

 but the valiant Mr. Gibbon has cut down the Pond 

 Head, and publicly fished him, as also removed all 

 Mr. Joliffe's Bound stones, set thereabouts as Bounda- 

 ries to and about the Pond." * 



During Mr. Matthew's tenancy of Lady Holt, the 

 terrible murder by the smugglers occurred there, and 

 seems to have given the death blow to the place. 

 It is singular that though it happened on Harting 

 soil, not one Harting man was principal or accessory 

 to it. Caryll's gardner, William Comberleach, a name 

 still surviving in its shortened form of Bleach, was 

 tried as we shall see on a remote charge of being 

 an accomplice, but the trial failed. It is a remarkable 

 coincidence that (as apparently in the case of the 

 other murder near Lady Holt in 1601) the murderers 

 were strangers, and some in fact came from another 

 county. But by whomsoever a murder is committed, 

 in the issue it is the place in which the deed is done 

 that suffers the stigma of guilt. And the memory of 

 the smuggler's murder at the Harehurst or Harris 

 Well of Lady Holt is vivid still, though near 130 

 years have gone since 1748. 



The county of Sussex, from one end to the other, 

 at this time favoured the smugglers, who procured 

 for the landlord his wine and spirits, and for the 

 * Vol. IV., pp. 147-8. 



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