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"I's had so many children," she said, "I can't tell till I call de names: Pomp, Jim, Tom, Sol, Sue, Dick, an' Dilcy; den some babies I's got in heaven. I seed heap o' trouble in my time. I nursed at de breas' eleven of my firs' massar's chillen, Isaac Wiston, and six of his gran'-chillen. I dress 'em firs', an' some on 'em for de grave.
There may be appalling depths of iniquity in every one of us, only most people are fortunate enough to go through the world without meeting anything to wake the devil in them. I don't believe Wiston was bad in the ordinary sense. Only there was something else in him-somebody else, if you like and in a moment it came uppermost, and he was a branded man. Ugh! it's a gruesome thought."
I heard Wiston, the coal-maister, had gien him five hunner pounds on the quiet." "I heard that too," replied Matthew, "but, like you, I'm loth to think it o' Smillie. I'd believe it quicker aboot yon ither chiel, Charlie Rogerson. He comes oot to speak to us ay dressed in a black dress-suit, wi' white cuffs doon to his finger nebs, his gold ring, his lum hat, an' a' his fal-de-lals."
Wiston church, which stands in the park and close to the house, contains several monuments to the Shirleys and one of a child, possibly a son of Sir John de Braose; a splendid brass of the latter lies on the floor of the south chapel; it is covered with the words 'Jesu Mercy. There are a number of dilapidated monuments and pieces of sculpture remaining in the church, which has been spoilt, and some of the details and monuments actually destroyed, by ignorant and careless "restoration."
"I went there in '99" Thirlstone was saying, "the time Wiston and I were sent " and then he stopped, and his eager face clouded. Wiston's name cast a shadow over our reminiscences. "What did he actually do?" I asked after a short silence. "Pretty bad! He seemed a commonplace, good sort of fellow, popular, fairly competent, a little bad-tempered perhaps.
He was tall, but his spareness suggested fragility, and his face, which emphasized this impression, had a hint of querulous discontent in it. "I didn't expect to get through until to-morrow, but they've altered the running of the stage," he said. "Wiston drove me up from the settlement, and said he'd send my things across to-morrow. I was glad to get out of Victoria.
Why can't you say you won't meet Wiston!" His face cleared. "Well, that's the fact I won't. It would be too infernally unpleasant. You see, I was once by way of being his friend, and he was in my regiment. I couldn't do it." The landlord came in at the moment with a basket of peats. "How long is Capt. Mr. Wiston staying here?" I asked. "He's no bidin' ony time.
The least remarkable and the most unfortunate of these sons of his was the eldest, Thomas, whose life, however, as a soldier and freebooter, both on shore in the Low Countries and at sea, is sufficiently full of adventure to satisfy anyone. He came, however, to utter grief at last, and had to sell Wiston, retiring to the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1630.
It might indeed seem a long road from Wiston under the Downs to the Gulf of Guinea, the Quays of Venice, Constantinople, the Euphrates, Babylon, Moscow, Prague, Rome, and Morocco, to die at last a beggar in purse, but in heart a great Prince in Madrid.
Now Steyning lies under Chanctonbury, but I resisted the temptation to spend the afternoon in the old camp there looking over the "blue goodness of the weald," for I wished especially to visit the church of Wiston, and to see, if I might, Wiston House, which Sir Thomas Shirley built about 1576, and where those three brothers were born who astonished not only Sussex and all England, but Rome itself and the Pope by their marvellous daring and adventures.
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