SUSSEX ROAD-LORE 107 



did, as I always can, to my Intense satisfaction. 

 Next I was dumped in Lancashire with skies 

 made murky by stalks' smoke and grimy spoil 

 banks ; big wheels like revolving gallows, and 

 cables coming out of the pits' depths ; smutty 

 canals and inky water gathered on the barren 

 wastes' undermined faces ; doleful, disused, dingy 

 brickworks' buildings and forsaken cottages, 

 looking all the dirtier for having been whitened ; 

 and, worst of all, deserted shafts, shuddery 

 spectacles to the inexperienced in colliery ways 

 and practices. Money, much money, more 

 money, most money, might be in It — very likely 

 was. Land paid, we will allow, far better from 

 its subterranean crop than pastorally or agri- 

 culturally treated. What was dreadfully dull and 

 depressing to one used to clean country, clear 

 skies, and green trees and fields was no doubt 

 just homely to those bred and born to the 

 conditions. The pitmen's gritty life must be 

 healthy, otherwise they could not be so spry and 

 smart out of their coal dust, and their labour is 

 well paid for — well, look at their spending-money. 

 Nobody wanted pitying, and possibly all had 

 happened for the best all round. Yet there was 

 I mentally addressing the Sussex iron and Kent 

 coal lands with the Wesleyism, ''There, but for 

 grace, go Kent and Sussex." 



Did Sussex Iron-smelting carry with It 

 blackness for the country ? Not much, I expect, 

 judging from the prospects round and about the 

 site of the first foundry in the county, overlooked 

 by Hog House, decorated with a pig in Iron, the 

 Hogges' family rebus moulded at the works just 

 over the way, scene of operations for '* Ralph 

 Hogge and his man John, who atte Buxtede cast 



