to the gate by which London was entered,
Billingsgate.

Billingshurst's place in literature was made by William Cobbett, for it
was here that he met the boy in a smock frock who recalled to his mind
so many of his deeds of Quixotry. The incident is described in the
_Rural Rides_:--

[Sidenote: COBBETT AND THE LITTLE CHAP]

"This village is seven miles from Horsham, and I got here to breakfast
about seven o'clock. A very pretty village, and a very nice breakfast,
in a very neat little parlour of a very decent public-house. The
landlady sent her son to get me some cream, and he was just such a chap
as I was at his age, and dressed just in the same sort of way, his main
garment being a blue smock-frock, faded from wear, and mended with
pieces of _new_ stuff, and, of course, not faded. The sight of this
smock-frock brought to my recollection many things very dear to me. This
boy will, I daresay, perform his part at Billingshurst, or at some place
not far from it. If accident had not taken me from a similar scene, how
many villains and fools, who have been well teased and tormented, would
have slept in peace at night, and have fearlessly swaggered about by
day!

[Illustration: _Rudgwick._]

"When I look at this little chap--at his smock-frock, his nailed shoes,
and his clean, plain, coarse shirt, I ask myself, will anything, I
wonder, ever send this chap across the ocean to tackle the base,
corrupt, perjured Republican Judges of Pennsylvania? Will this little
lively, but, at the same time, simple boy, ever become the terror of
villains and hypocrites across the Atlantic? What a chain of strange
circumstances there must be to lead this boy to thwart a miscreant
tyrant like M'keen, the Chief Justice, and afterwards Governor, of
Pennsylvania, and to expose the corruptions of the band of rascals,
called a 'Senate and a House of Representatives,' at Harrisburgh, in
that state!"

[Sidenote: A VILLAGE DISPUTE]

Billingshurst church has an interesting ceiling, an early brass (to
Thomas and Elizabeth Bartlet), and the record of one of those disputes
over pews which add salt to village life and now and then, as we saw at
Littlehampton, lead to real trouble. The verger (if he be the same) will
tell the story, the best part of which describes the race which was held
every Sunday for certain seats in the chancel, and the tactical
"packing" of the same by the winning party. In the not very remote past
a noble carved chair used