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THE SOUTH DOWNS 213 |
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in this particular case they were most disgracefully treated. '"I've heard my feather say, that when he lived over the hill, there was a carter that worked on the farm along wid him, and no one couldn't think how t'was that this here man's horses looked so much better than what any one else's did. I've heard my feather say that they was that fat that they couldn't scarcely get about; and this here carter he was just as much puzzled as what the rest was, so cardinley he laid hisself up in the staable one night, to see if he could find the meaning an't.
"'And he hadn't been there very long, before these here liddle farisees they crep in at the sinkhole ; in they crep, one after another; liddle tiny bits of chaps they was, and each an 'em had a liddle sack of corn on his back as much as ever he could carry. Well! in they crep, on they gets, up they dims, and there they was, just as busy feeding these here horses; and prensley one says to t'other, he says, "Puck," says he, "I twets, do you twet?" And thereupon, this here carter he jumps up and says, "Dannel ye," he says, "I'll make ye twet afore I've done wud ye!" But before he could get anigh 'em they was all gone, every one an 'em.
"' And I've heard my feather say, that from that day forard this here carter's horses fell away, till they got that thin and poor that he couldn't bear to be seen along wid 'em, so he took and went away, for he couldn't abear to see hisself no longer; and nobody ain't seen him since.'"
One of the least beautiful of the landmarks on the Downs, seen far and wide over the Weald, is the Dyke Hotel. Thither from Brighton by road or rail come many thousands of people who |
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