If ye put fiery coles under an Apple tree, and then cast off the powder of Brimstone therein, and the fume thereof ascend up, and touch an Apple that is wet, that Apple shall fall incontinant. TO DESTROY PISMIERS OR ANTS ABOUT A TREE. Ye shall take of the saw-dust of Oke-wood oney, and straw that al about the tree root, and the next raine that doth come, all the Pismiers or Ants shall die there. For Earewigges, shooes stopt with hay, and hanged on the tree one night, they come all in. FOR TO HAVE RATH MEDLARS TWO MONTHS BEFORE OTHERS. For to have Medlars two months sooner than others and the one shall be better far than the other, ye shall graffe them upon a gooseberry tree, and also a franke mulberry tree, and before ye do graffe them, ye shall wet them in hay, and then graffe them. [Sidenote: MALLING DEANERY] To return to the line, for the excursion to Plumpton has taken us far from the original route, the next station to Newick and Chailey is Barcombe Mills, a watery village on the Ouse. The river valley contracts as Lewes is reached, with Malling Hill on the east and Offham Hill on the west: both taking their names from two of the quaint little hamlets by which Lewes is surrounded. It was at Mailing Deanery that the assassins of Thomas à Becket sought shelter on their flight from Canterbury. The legend records how, when they laid their armour on the Deanery table, that noble piece of furniture rose and flung the accursed accoutrements to the ground. On Malling Hill is the residence of a Lewes lady whose charitable impulses have taken a direction not common among those who suffer for others. She receives into her stable old and overworked horses, thus ensuring for them a sleek and peaceful dotage enlivened by sugar and carrots, and marked by the kindest consideration. The pyramidal grave (as of a Saxon chief) of one of these dependants may be seen from the road. [Illustration: _On the Ouse above Lewes._] CHAPTER XXVI LEWES The Museum of Sussex--The riches of Lewes--Her leisure and antiquity--A plea from _Idlehurst_--Old Lewes disabilities--The Norman Conquest--Lewes Castle--Sussex curiosities--Lewes among her hills--The Battle of Lewes--The Cluniac Priory--Repellers of the French--A comprehender of Earthquakes--The author of _The Rights of Man_--A game of bowls--"Clio" Rickman and Thomas Tipper--Famous Lewes men--The Fifth of November--The Sussex martyrs. Apart from the circumstance that the curiosities collected by the county's Archæological Society are preserved in the castle, Lewes is the museum of Sussex; for she has managed to compress into small compass more objects of antiquarian interest than any town I know. Chichester, which is compact enough, sprawls by comparison.