One of the original owners (the Oxenbridges) like Col. Lunsford of East Hoathly was credited by the country people with an appetite for children. Nothing could compass his death but a wooden saw, with which after a drunken bout the villagers severed him in Stubb's Lane, by Groaning Bridge. Not all the family, however, were bloodthirsty, for at least two John Oxenbridges of the sixteenth century were divines, one a Canon of Windsor, the other a "grave and reverent preacher." [Sidenote: DEAN SWIFT'S CRADLE] The present vicar of Brede, the village on the hill above Brede Place, has added to the natural antiquities of his church several alien curiosities, chief among them being the cradle in which Dean Swift was rocked. It is worth a visit to Brede church to be persuaded that that matured Irishman ever was a baby. [Illustration: _Brede Place, from the South._] CHAPTER XXXIX ROBERTSBRIDGE Horace Walpole in difficulties--A bibliophile's threat--Salehurst--Bodiam--Northiam--Queen Elizabeth's dinner and shoes--Brightling--Jack Fuller--Turner in East Sussex--The Burwash country--Sussex superstitions--_Sussex Folk and Sussex Ways_--Liberals and Conservatives--The Sussex character--Independent bellringers--"Silly Sussex"--Burwash at Cricket--James Hurdis--A donkey race--"A hint to great and little men"--Henry Burwash--Etchingham--Sir John Lade and the Prince--Ticehurst and Wadhurst. Robertsbridge is not in itself a particularly attractive place; but it has a good inn, and many interesting villages may be reached from it, the little light railway that runs from the town to Tenterden, along the Rother valley, making the exploration of this part of Sussex very simple.