60 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



spelling, please — Ouse, not Booze). After scull- 

 ing down from the Bear at Lewes — good old 

 Bear ! — he proved, as I have said, genuine 

 convalescence by going in for Tipper ale. 



Before leaving Newhaven I want to compli- 

 ment Mr Rudyard Kipling on a little touch of 

 his invariable local accuracy. In one of the very, 

 very few Sussex poems ever written, alluding to 



" Where beside the broad-banked Ouse 

 Lie down our Sussex steers," 



he rhymes "Ouse" with *' Piddinghoe's." Now 

 I should like to know how many of his readers 

 are aware that that rhyme is, according to 

 Sussex pronunciation, not lame but perfect? 

 The natives — and they ought to know — pronounce 

 the name of Newhaven's little neio^hbour with the 

 dolphin weathercock as if it were spelt '' Pidding- 

 hoo." 



The skiff-pulling frequenters of the Ouse 

 generally make my blood run cold when I watch 

 their antics. If there is one thing more than 

 another that upsets me it is seeing anybody 

 standing up in small-floored craft. The New- 

 haven Ouse navigators — don't forget^ please, that 

 this is accorded the dignity of a salmon river, 

 and is subject to regulations accordingly — bear 

 charmed lives. They go out in old Thames 

 skiffs and stand up on the slightest provocation. 

 If they want to know the time, they ask a — no, I 

 mean they stand up. So they do to blow their 

 precious noses, to hoist their slacks, or call out 

 to an acquaintance afloat or ashore. To change 

 places, up they get. For purposes of harrying 

 peaceful cattle on the banks or startling horses 



