THE JENKINS OF STOWTING xiii 



husband. And the last complication was to be added by the 

 Bishop of Chichester's brother, Charles Buckner, Vice- Admiral 

 of the White, who was twice married, first to a paternal cousin 

 of Squire John, and second to Anne, only sister of the Squire's 

 wife, and already the widow of another Frewen. The reader 

 must bear Mrs. Buckner in mind ; it was by means of that lady 

 that Fleeming Jenkin began life as a poor man. Meanwhile, 

 the relationship of any Frewen to any Jenkin at the end of these 

 evolutions presents a problem almost insoluble ; and we need 

 not wonder if Mrs. John, thus exercised in her immediate circle, 

 was in her old age ' a great genealogist of all Sussex families, 

 arid much consulted.' The names Frewen and Jenkin may 

 almost seem to have been interchangeable at will ; and yet 

 Fate proceeds with such particularity that it was perhaps on the 

 point of name the family was ruined. 



The John Jenkins had a family of one daughter and five 

 extravagant and unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered 

 the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where he offered, 

 we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy of the age. He 

 was a handsome figure of a man ; jovial and jocular ; fond of his 

 garden, which produced under his care the finest fruits of the 

 neighbourhood ; and like all the family, very choice in horses. 

 He drove tandem ; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle horse, 

 Captain (for the names of horses are piously preserved in the 

 family chronicle which I follow) was trained to break into a 

 gallop as soon as the vicar's foot was thrown across its back ; nor 

 would the rein be drawn in the nine miles between Northiam 

 and the Vicarage door. Debt was the man's proper element ; he 

 used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of his church ; and the 

 speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At an early 

 age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he 

 had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died 

 unmarried ; the other imitated her father, and married ' impru- 

 dently.' The son. still more gallantly continuing the tradition, 

 entered the army, loaded himself with debt, was forced to sell 

 out, took refuge in the Marines, and was lost on the Dogger 

 Bank in the war-ship Minotaur. If he did not marry below 



a 2 



