, for there is no sudden cessation of water power as of wind
power. Sussex still has many water-mills--cool and splashing homes of
peaceful bustle. Long may they endure.

Highdown Hill has other associations. In 1812 the Gentlemen of the Weald
met the Gentlemen of the Sea-coast at cricket on its dividing summit.
The game, which was for one hundred guineas, was a very close thing, the
Gentlemen of the Weald winning by only seven runs. Among the Gentlemen
of the Sea-coast was Mr. Osbaldeston, while the principal Gentleman of
the Weald was Mr. E. H. Budd.

A mile north of Highdown Hill, in a thickly wooded country, are Patching
and Clapham; Patching celebrated for its pond, which washes the
high-road to Arundel, and Clapham for its woods. Three hundred and more
years ago Patching Copse was the scene of a treasonable meeting between
William Shelley, an ancestor of the poet, one branch of whose family
long held Michelgrove (where Henry VIII. was entertained by our
plotter's grandfather), and Charles Paget: sturdy Roman Catholics both,
who thus sought each other out, on the night of September 16, 1583, to
confer as to the possibility of invading England, deposing Elizabeth,
and setting Mary Queen of Scots upon the throne. Nothing came of the
plot save the imprisonment of Shelley (who was condemned to death but
escaped the sentence) and the flight of Paget, to hatch further treason
abroad.

[Sidenote: THE PERFECT WIFE]

The last Shelley to hold Michelgrove, now no more, was Sir John, who,
after it had been in the family for three hundred and fifty years, sold
it in 1800. This was the Sir John Shelley who composed the following
epitaph in Clapham church (one of Sir Gilbert Scott's restorations) to
commemorate the very remarkable virtues of his lady--untimely snatched
from his side:--

Here Lyeth the Body of Wilhelmina Shelley
who departed this Life the 21st of March 1772
Aged Twenty three years.

She was a pattern for the World to follow:
Such a being both in form and mind perhaps never existed before.
A most dutiful, affectionate, and Virtuous Wife,
A most tender and Anxious parent,
A most sincere and constant Friend,
A most amiable and elegant companion;
Universally Benevolent, generous, and humane;
The Pride of her own Sex,
The admiration of ours.
She lived