en called to
prove him no mute, this old and horrible sentence, proper (as the law
considered) to his offence and obstinacy, was passed upon him. The
executioner, the story goes, while conveying the body in a wheelbarrow
to burial, turned it out in the roadway at the place where the King's
Head now stands, and then putting it in again, passed on. Not long
afterwards he fell dead at this spot.

The church of St. Mary, which rises majestically at the end of the
Causeway, has a slender shingled spire that reaches a great height--not
altogether, however, without indecision. There is probably an altitude
beyond which shingles are a mistake: they are better suited to the more
modest spire of the small village. The church is remarkable also for
length of roof (well covered with Horsham stone), and it is altogether a
singularly commanding structure. Within is an imposing plainness. The
stone effigy of a knight in armour reclines just to the south of the
altar: son of a branch of the Braose family--of Chesworth, hard by, now
in ruins--of whose parent stock we shall hear more when we reach
Bramber. The knight, Thomas, Lord Braose, died in 1395. The youth of
Horsham, hostile invincibly, like all boys, to the stone nose, have
reduced that feature to the level of the face; or was it the work of the
Puritans, who are known to have shared in the nasal objection? South of
the churchyard is the river, from the banks of which the church would
seem to be all Horsham, so effectually is the town behind it blotted out
by its broad back. On the edge of the churchyard is perhaps the smallest
house in Sussex: certainly the smallest to combine Gothic windows with
the sale of ginger-beer.

[Sidenote: A SCHOOL OF CHAMPIONS]

Horsham seems always to have been fond of pleasure. Within iron railings
in the Carfax, in a trim little enclosure of turf and geraniums, is the
ancient iron ring used in the bull-baiting which the inhabitants
indulged in and loved until as recently as 1814. That the town is still
disposed to entertainment, although of a quieter kind, its walls
testify; for the hoardings are covered with the promise of circus or
conjuror, minstrels or athletic sports, drama or lecture. In July, when
I was there last, Horsham was anticipating a _fete_, in which a mock
bull-fight and a battle of confetti were mere details; while it was
actually in the throes of a fair. The booths filled an open space to the
west of the town known as the Jew's