HISTORY OF HARTING. 213 



then the Titheman come (came) : you didn't dare 

 take up a field without you let him know. If the 

 Titheman didn't come at the time, you tithed your- 

 self. He marked his sheaves with a bough or bush. 

 You couldn't get over the Titheman. If you began 

 at a hedge and made the tenth cock smaller than the 

 rest, the Titheman might begin in the middle just 

 where he liked. The Titheman at Harting, old John 

 Blackmore, lived at Mundy's (South Harting Street). 

 His grandson is blacksmith at Harting now. All the 

 tithing was quiet. You didn't dare even set your 

 eggs till the Titheman had been and ta'en his tithe. 

 The usual day's work was from 7 to 5. 



" An old man once come up to me at nuncheon, 

 a kind of half-starved independant old man, used to 

 sponge about, and he sidled up to me and says, 

 looking aside at me (it is impossible to give the old 

 man's perk), a stamping and staring at me with my 

 shirt collar all open : ' You've got a pretty neck for 

 a halter.' ' Ah ! but when the ropemaker made 

 yours, he told me there wer'nt hamp enough (hemp} 

 left to make me one ! ' The old man's name was 

 Newlen." This was, without doubt, one of the last 

 of our old friend Parson Newlin's " numerous retinue."* 

 One of the daughters married Farmer Gayger, but 

 the rest seem to have gone down rapidly ; and the 

 son of the courtly old Rector of Harting became at 

 last " a kind of half-starved independent old man, who 

 used to sponge about," and was the butt of the merry 

 harvest field. The repartee is certainly far above the 

 average of ordinary Sussex wit. The Sussex swain 

 is, however, not without certain talents of his own. 

 His womankind have unusually quick powers of ut- 

 terance, and he himself though but a trifle slower, is 

 often a wonderful mimic ; and thus his yarn is broken 

 up into a constant parenthetical drama, very cleverly 

 acted, while the nimble tongue casts off the historical 

 appendages of, " says he," " said I," and the alteration 

 The mother of William Ansell, sen., W. Harting, was a Newlin. 



